ASA Database Administration Guide
International Languages and Character Sets
Introduction to international languages and character sets
If you use the default actions when creating a database, the Initialization utility infers a collation from the character set used by the operating system on the machine on which you create the database.
For more information on how to find the default collation in your environment, see Finding the default collation.
If all the machines in your environment share the same character set, then this choice of collation ensures that all the character data in the database and in client applications is represented in the same manner. As long as the collation provides a proper character set and sort order for your data, using this default setting is a simple way of ensuring that characters are represented consistently throughout the system.
If it is not possible to set up your system in this default manner, you need to decide which collation to use in your database, and whether to use character set translation to ensure that data is exchanged consistently between the pieces of your database system. This chapter provides the information you need to make and implement these decisions.