XSU returning nested VARCHAR2 data as HEX ASCII

Question

Hello,
I am using Oracle XDK (xdk_java_9_2_0_1_0) against Oracle 9.0.1. I've defined an object view with nested objects. I am running an XSU against that view. The XML that it returns displays the character data in the outer view correctly as characters. All the character data from the nested objects are displayed as hexadecimal ASCII. All the character data are defined as VARCHAR2 in the underlying tables.
This is the excerpt of the XML output:
<?xml version = '1.0'?>
<ROWSET>
<ROW num="1">
<PRODUCT_ID>4181</PRODUCT_ID>
<TYPE>com.lww.pace.domain.product.NonSubscriptionPrintProduct</TYPE>
<TITLE>Telephone Triage for Obstetrics and Gynecology</TITLE>
<STANDARD_NUMBER>0-7817-3615-3</STANDARD_NUMBER>
<PRODUCT_SUB_TYPE>book</PRODUCT_SUB_TYPE>
<EDITION_NUMBER>0</EDITION_NUMBER>
<COPYRIGHT_YEAR>2002</COPYRIGHT_YEAR>
<PRODUCT_DATE>6/14/2002 0:0:0</PRODUCT_DATE>
<PUBLISHER_DISTRIBUTOR>
<PUBLISHER_DISTRIBUTOR_NAME>0x4C572657</PUBLISHER_DISTRIBUTOR_NAME>
<TYPE>0x5055424C4953484552</TYPE>
</PUBLISHER_DISTRIBUTOR>
<PHYSICAL_SPECIFICATIONS>
<PHYSICAL_SPECIFICATIONS_ID>104164</PHYSICAL_SPECIFICATIONS_ID>
<PAGE_COUNT>416</PAGE_COUNT>
<PRODUCT_ID>4181</PRODUCT_ID>
<MEDIA_TYPE>0x424F4F4B</MEDIA_TYPE>
<FOUR_COLOR_COUNT>0</FOUR_COLOR_COUNT>
<TWO_COLOR_COUNT>0</TWO_COLOR_COUNT>
<TABLE_COUNT>0</TABLE_COUNT>
<BINDING_TYPE>0x73706972616C</BINDING_TYPE>
<HEIGHT>0x3920312F3422</HEIGHT>
<WIDTH>0x3720332F3822</WIDTH>
</PHYSICAL_SPECIFICATIONS>
The view is defined like
REATE OR REPLACE VIEW PRODUCT_V ( PRODUCT_ID,
TYPE, TITLE, STANDARD_NUMBER, PRODUCT_SUB_TYPE,
VOLUME, EDITION_TYPE, EDITION_NUMBER, COPYRIGHT_YEAR,
PRODUCT_DATE, DESCRIPTION, PUBLISHER_DISTRIBUTOR, PHYSICAL_SPECIFICATIONS,
MARKETS, INDIVIDUAL_AUTHORS, ORGANIZATION_AUTHORS, PRODUCT_LINKS,
FEATURE ) AS SELECT a.product_id,
a.type,
a.title,
a.standard_number,
a.product_sub_type,
a.volume,
a.edition_type,
a.edition_number,
a.copyright_year,
d.product_date,
t_publisher_distributor(c.publisher_distributor_name,
c.type),
t_physical_specifications(e.physical_specifications_id,
e.page_count,
e.product_id,
e.media_type,
e.four_color_count,
e.two_color_count,
e.table_count,
e.binding_type,
e.height,
e.width)
FROM product a,
description b,
publisher_distributor c,
product_date d,
physical_specifications e
WHERE a.description_id = b.description_id(+)                    AND
a.product_id = d.product_id                         AND
a.publisher_distributor_id = c.publisher_distributor_id(+)     AND
a.product_id = e.product_id(+)                         AND
d.product_date between (to_date(sysdate, 'dd-mm-yy') - 180)     AND
(to_date(sysdate, 'dd-mm-yy') + 360)
The query
select binding_type
from physical_specifications
where physical_specifications.physical_specifications_id=104164
returns value 'spiral' which in XML output is displayed as
<BINDING_TYPE>0x73706972616C</BINDING_TYPE>
What may cause such a transformaton and how to avoid it?
Thank you.
Michael

Answer 1

this issue happens because your webserver servlet CLASSPATH environment variables set misses national charset classes which are contained in nls_charset12.zip package from Oracle JDBC driver 1.2
Add something like following string (this one is extraction from Jserv conf file), and everything''ll work fine.
wrapper.classpath=...\lib\nls_charset12.zip