PreparedStatement, VARCHAR"(4000) and umlauts

Question

Can someone explain this to me, please?
I have a varchar2 column of size 4000. Just big enough so I don't have to LOB it.I can insert a String of size 4000 no problem. But, if my String contains special characters, such as umlauts, I get an error that the String size is too big for the column. Surprises me, as my column type is char rather than byte. However, if I don't use prepared Statements the same String will insert OK.
Further, if I reduce the column size to 1, I can insert 'ä' using prepared statements.
Simple test code is below. Can someone explain to me what is going on? Thanks.
create table test_table (
name varchar2(4000 char);
public static void main(String[] args) {
final String url = "jdbc:oracle:thin:@host:port:DB";
final String username = "me";
final String password = "password";
String veryBigString = "";
for (int i = 0; i < 4000; i++) veryBigString = veryBigString + "a";
System.out.println("vbs length: " + veryBigString.length());
Connection connection = null;
try {
Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver");
connection = DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);
Statement s = connection.createStatement();
int inserted = s.executeUpdate("insert into test_table values ('" + veryBigString + "')");
System.out.println("1: inserted " + inserted);
inserted = s.executeUpdate("insert into test_table values ('" + ("ä" + veryBigString.substring(1)) + "')");
System.out.println("2: inserted " + inserted);
PreparedStatement ps = connection.prepareStatement("insert into test_table values (?)");
ps.setString(1, veryBigString);
inserted = ps.executeUpdate();
System.out.println("3: inserted " + inserted);
ps.setString(1, "ä" + veryBigString.substring(1));
inserted = ps.executeUpdate();
System.out.println("4: inserted " + inserted);
catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
finally {
if (connection != null) try {
connection.close();
catch (SQLException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

Answer 1

I am unable to reproduce your problem
I took your code, I had to change the connect string but otherwise it is the same
I was able to load all four rows with no problem
My character set is US7ASCII for the database and for the client
I suspect you might be having a character-set-conversion issue, you know, where the client character set does not match the db character set so it has to do a translation, sometimes it is called 'lossy' if the client char set is not a complete subset of the db char set
So - I changed the NLS_LANG env var on the client to WEISO... (the one you mentioned in your mail), but it still worked
So, then I changed the driver - I was using classes12.jar so I changed it to ojdbc14.jar, it still worked
I am using 10.2, is that what you guys are using?
One thing you might want to try - do a
SELECT DUMP(NAME) FROM TEST_TABLE
It will give you the byte-by-byte ascii info that was loaded into the table, that might give you some insight
Maybe load just 1000 characters and see what it is putting in the db for the As as opposed to the umlaut-As
If you look at the data I loaded, it put in the umlaut-A as a single byte
(but - that makes sense for the US7ASCII character set)
(I trimmed the output)
SQL> select dump(name) from test_table;
DUMP(NAME)
Typ=1 Len=4000: 228,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,...
Typ=1 Len=4000: 97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,9...
Typ=1 Len=4000: 97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,9...
Typ=1 Len=4000: 228,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,97,...
See below, char 228 is the umlaut-A
SQL> select chr(228) from dual;
C
ä
Here is the code, it is almost identical, I just put the user/pass in the connect string
import java.sql.*;
import java.math.*;
import java.io.*;
import oracle.jdbc.*;
import java.util.*; // for the Properties
class Varchar
public static void main(String[] args) {
final String url = "jdbc:oracle:thin:user/pass@host:1521:db";
String veryBigString = "";
for (int i = 0; i < 4000; i++) veryBigString = veryBigString + "a";
System.out.println("vbs length: " + veryBigString.length());
Connection connection = null;
try {
Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver");
connection = DriverManager.getConnection(url);
Statement s = connection.createStatement();
int inserted = s.executeUpdate("insert into test_table values ('" + veryBigString + "')");
System.out.println("1: inserted " + inserted);
inserted = s.executeUpdate("insert into test_table values ('" + ("ä" + veryBigString.substring(1)) + "')");
System.out.println("2: inserted " + inserted);
PreparedStatement ps = connection.prepareStatement("insert into test_table values (?)");
ps.setString(1, veryBigString);
inserted = ps.executeUpdate();
System.out.println("3: inserted " + inserted);
ps.setString(1, "ä" + veryBigString.substring(1));
inserted = ps.executeUpdate();
System.out.println("4: inserted " + inserted);
catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
finally {
if (connection != null) try {
connection.close();
catch (SQLException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}