1.5 Internationalization with Unicode

Unicode is a universal text encoding standard. Each character has a unique number, which allows every language to be handled with no concern for data loss when the data is moved between different environments.

LANSA provides the following features utilizing Unicode:

• All multilingual text in the Visual LANSA Editor is displayed using Unicode. You can see and edit English, French, Japanese, Chinese, and so on exactly as it will appear in the target application when running in a particular language.

• In an RDMLX partition, NChar and NVarChar field types allow data to be handled as Unicode throughout an RDMLX application in the User Interface and in the database. This means an application can allow data from multiple languages to be displayed, edited and saved in the same database file. When the data is retrieved from the database, no characters will be lost.

• Existing fields can be changed to NChar and NVarChar field types to enable your existing application to support world-wide multilingual customer data (such as names and addresses) as well as language-specific descriptions for code tables and many other situations.

• Load Other File creates NChar and NVarChar field types to support external database columns of Unicode native types.

• WAMs are always output in the Unicode encoding UTF-8.