Problem Note 51411: Oracle special characters might be displayed as question marks (?) in SAS®
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When different encoding methods are set for Oracle and SAS, Oracle special characters might be displayed as question marks in SAS. For example, the problem might occur if Oracle encoding is set to UTF-8 and SAS English session encoding is set to WLATIN1 (English).
To determine what your current SAS session encoding method is, use the OPTIONS procedure as shown here:
run;
The SAS log then displays the following information:
To determine the Oracle database encoding method, execute the following SQL query in Oracle:
The following is displayed:
------------------------------ ----------------------------------------
NLS_CHARACTERSET AL32UTF8
If you want Oracle data to be displayed in SAS (English), use the NLS_LANG parameter. NLS_LANG lets Oracle know what character set your client application is using so that Oracle can convert from the client's character set to the database character set, when needed. Here is an example:
For instructions about how to set NLS_LANG environment variable, see SAS Note 18688, "Data in a local language other than English might not be displayed correctly when you import the data from an Oracle database into SAS® software."
Operating System and Release Information
| Product Family | Product | System | SAS Release | |
| Reported | Fixed* | |||
| SAS System | SAS/ACCESS Interface to Oracle | Microsoft® Windows® for 64-Bit Itanium-based Systems | ||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter 64-bit Edition | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise 64-bit Edition | ||||
| Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition | ||||
| Microsoft® Windows® for x64 | ||||
| OS/2 | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 8 Enterprise 32-bit | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 8 Enterprise x64 | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 8 Pro 32-bit | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64 | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 8.1 Enterprise 32-bit | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 8.1 Enterprise x64 | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro 32-bit | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 95/98 | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Server | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional | ||||
| Microsoft Windows NT Workstation | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for x64 | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2008 | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2008 for x64 | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Datacenter | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Std | ||||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Std | ||||
| Microsoft Windows XP Professional | ||||
| Windows 7 Enterprise 32 bit | ||||
| Windows 7 Enterprise x64 | ||||
| Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit | ||||
| Windows 7 Home Premium x64 | ||||
| Windows 7 Professional 32 bit | ||||
| Windows 7 Professional x64 | ||||
| Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit | ||||
| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 | ||||
| Windows Millennium Edition (Me) | ||||
| Windows Vista | ||||
| Windows Vista for x64 | ||||
| 64-bit Enabled AIX | ||||
| 64-bit Enabled HP-UX | ||||
| 64-bit Enabled Solaris | ||||
| ABI+ for Intel Architecture | ||||
| AIX | ||||
| HP-UX | ||||
| HP-UX IPF | ||||
| IRIX | ||||
| Linux | ||||
| Linux for x64 | ||||
| Linux on Itanium | ||||
| OpenVMS Alpha | ||||
| OpenVMS on HP Integrity | ||||
| Solaris | ||||
| Solaris for x64 | ||||
| Tru64 UNIX | ||||