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 unicode in aln / upper (varchar) fields?

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Robert Matthews's profile image
Robert Matthews posted 03-05-2024 16:08

I'm working with a team integrating an external application for data gathering into maximo through the mif. 

I was asked the data types of various attributes, including many standard ALN or UPPER maximo-typed ones, denoted as VARCHAR in the Oracle DDL.

The behavior I observe is that non-ascii unicode characters are converted into inverted question marks ( ¿ ) on save. This happens in integration tests and in our environment in the Maximo UI also if you paste in some unsupported characters. Put another way, attribute values with non-ascii unicode are not rejected with errors they are just transformed and saved. 

Is this correct, varchar does not support non-ascii unicode, so the external application needs to employ some method to ensure its data is ascii? 

Thanks!

Martin Fabra's profile image
Martin Fabra posted 03-21-2024 18:50

Hi Robert Matthews! Look, every time I process data that will later be imported into Maximo, I open the csv file from notepad++ and execute a function that is "convert to UTF-8 without BOM" (today is convert to UTF-8) . With this I know that the non-ASCII characters will then be read correctly in Maximo, in the same way as if I saved them by the system. Obviously, Maximo when import data (I don't know if it happens with the integrations) does not have the ability to interpret these non-ASCII characters correctly and corrupts and saves them incorrectly, possibly because it cannot or does not have the ability to interact with the BOM presents in those files and that is why by eliminating it, I solve the problem.  We would need a Maximo integrations specialist who can explain why, but at least I will give you an idea on how to solve it.

Regards!

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