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:

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:

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." 

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