Defining the character set used by a data file

1. Define the character set with ChangeCharset.
2. Create the data file with HCreation (or HCreationIfNotFound). In these functions, use the hChangeCharset constant to take into account the character set specified by ChangeCharset.

Notes and limitations

• The size of string items specified in the analysis is expressed in bytes and not in characters. Depending on the character set used, you may have to increase the item size (if the characters used are coded on 2 bytes for example).
• The character set of the data file must always be identical to the character set specified by ChangeCharset. Otherwise, when accessing a string index (string, character, date, time):
  • Reading and searching for a record: no error will be displayed. However, the data read will not correspond to the expected data.
  • Modifying a record (addition, modification, deletion of records or crossed records): a WLanguage error will be displayed.
• No query with joins can be performed on text items that use different character sets.
• The sort order in HFSQL indexes ignores double letters (e.g., "CH" in Spanish or "LJ" in Croatian).
• In HFSQL Client/Server, only the sort order for the following languages is managed: French, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Estonian, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese.

Example: Creating a data file in Hebrew

// Language used in the application: Hebrew
Nation(nationHebrew)
// Change the character set
ChangeCharset(charsetHebrew)
// Create the data file 
// and take the change of character set into account
HCreation(Azaa, "", "", "", hChangeCharset)
// Enter a record
Azaa.toto = "ñéâëðéçìòëðâëêðéò"
HAdd(Azaa)

• a data file was translated.
• a data file is filled when installing an application with the data corresponding to the setup language.
• ...

Modifying the character set used for the searches and for the sorts

1. Specify the character set to use with ChangeCharset.
2. Re-index the data file with HIndex. Use the hChangeCharset constant to use the character set specified by ChangeCharset.

How to?

Example: Changing the fonts according to the character set of the data file read

HOpen(Customer)
FileLanguage is int = Customer.Charset
// Changes the character set according to the data file format
SWITCH FileLanguage
	CASE alphabetArabic: ChangeCharset(alphabetArabic)
	CASE defaultAlphabet: ChangeCharset(defaultAlphabet)
	CASE alphabetGreek: ChangeCharset(alphabetGreek)
	CASE alphabetHebrew: ChangeCharset(alphabetHebrew)
	CASE charsetOccidental: ChangeCharset(charsetOccidental)
	CASE RussianAlphabet: ChangeCharset(RussianAlphabet)
	CASE alphabetTurkish: ChangeCharset(alphabetTurkish)
	OTHER CASE
		// Switch to western character set
	  	ChangeCharset(charsetOccidental)
END