SPOOL the file in UTF8 Encoding

Question

Hi
My Database supports the storage of chineese characters. I need to generate a file from my db which is used for further Processing. The file generated from the database using spool command should support chineese characters. How to generate a flat file with UTF8 Encoding using Spool command. Please do help me out.
Here i am giving the database settings.
ARAMETER VALUE
NLS_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_TERRITORY AMERICA
NLS_CURRENCY $
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY AMERICA
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS .,
NLS_CALENDAR GREGORIAN
NLS_DATE_FORMAT DD-MON-FXYYYY
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_CHARACTERSET AL32UTF8
NLS_SORT BINARY
NLS_TIME_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY $
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET AL16UTF16
NLS_COMP BINARY
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP FALSE

Answer 1

Theoretically, nothing special is required to spool UTF-8 characters to a spool file. You just turn spooling on, select the data you need, and it will go into your spool file.
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Here is some sample code showing that it works.
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SQL> !cat create_spool_file.sql
set heading  off
set feedback off
set sqlprompt ""
set echo off
spool spool_file.sql
select
  'select asciistr('' ' || unistr( '\BBBB') || ''') as result from dual;'
from dual;
spool off
set heading on
set feedback on
set sqlprompt "SQL> "
SQL> start create_spool_file.sql
select asciistr(' ë®»') as result from dual;
SQL> start spool_file.sql
RESULT
\BBBB
1 row selected.Practically however, there are a number of challenges when working with UTF-8 characters. In the example above you can see that, even though the "select asciistr(' ë®»') as ..." command looks like it has garbage characters in it, the character actually made it into the spool file o.k. The problem has more to do with viewing the UTF-8 characters than with spooling them into a file. You can find more info. in this posting cannot display unicode Hex value 25A0 in SQL Plus / 10g .
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If you give a small example of what you're trying to accomplish and where you're having difficulty, perhaps we can help more.