What to set in order to select UTF8 character set in sqlplus?

Question

We are using 9.0.1.
select * from nls_database_parameters;
NLS_CHARACTERSET = UTF8
LANGUAGE = AMERICAN
TERRITORY = AMERICA
Web page encoding is UTF8.
We can see traditional and simplied chinese characters on web page without problem.
When we want to select thru sqlplus, the problem comes.
At first, I set the default win2000 language to traditional chinese.
locales is Chinese (Hong Kong).
Ansi Code page becomes 950. reboot the machine
set NLS_LANG=TRADITIONAL CHINESE.HONG KONG=ZHT16MSWIN950 in registry
web page can show traditonal and simplied chinese characters, but sqlplus fails.
Then I set the default win2000 language to simplied chinese, set the locales
to Chinese (PRC). reboot the machine
set NLS_LANG to simplied chinese character set.
web page can show traditonal and simplied chinese characters, but sqlplus still fails.
I have even set the NLS_LANG to _.UTF8. sqlplus still cannot show proper character set. Only the web page is okay.
I have referenced Oracle globalization web pages. I follow everything. What should I try?

Answer 1

The good news is that according to the iSQL*Plus FAQ on OTN, iSQL*Plus is available with 9.0.1.1 on Windows, and you can also download it directly from OTN. The bad news is that it does not support the SPOOL command
Since your requirement is to generate text reports with both Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters only, and that you don't need these characters to be able to display correctly inside a SQL*Plus session. You can set your NLS_LANG to TRADITIONAL CHINESE_HONG KONG.UTF8, launch SQL*Plus and spool out the content of the SELECT statement into a text file. This file will be encoded in UTF-8 and your Chinese data should show up in a Unicode UTF-8 viewer correctly.
I am not sure if Notepad in Windows 2000 can display UTF-8 text, if not you can open the text file up in a browser, and then set the page encoding to UTF-8 to view it.