§ Character not supported by table language

[safirlaila]

In some of our applications we have MEMO and formatteded
MEMO-fields. Since introducing Paradox 9.0 the § sign
is not accepted. The massage is: "The Character is not
supported by table language"

As we're located i Norway we must use Paradox Nordan40
as Table Language. This was the same when we used
Paradox 5.0 and the § was accepted.

Does anyone know how to fix this without changing the
Table Language?

 

[jlockley]

NOt using characters not supported by table language is my only solution. These incoude &, (, ), " and a few others. Universal ascii is equally reticent. My occasional work around is to use Clipmate, where I have all the offending characters listed for deletion in the automated cleanup process. This leaves you without brackets and quotes, but you usually won't want to enter those anyway. The alternative and equally burdensome solution is to put your information on inserted Word or Word Perfect documents, which you must open to upgrade. These. however, are not searchable and cannot be transferred to other programs.

If there is a solution for this nuisance, I would love to hear it, too.

 

[almir]

Hello!

Maybe this is not adequate solution for you, but...

We are located in Bosnia and use special characters of our language in Pdox 9 DB, even in memo fields. I have no solution if you do not want to change your table language, but if your table language is "ASCII international", you can use corresponding characters for special characters in Norwegian and then use some "local" or "domestic" font to show/represent the same characters as Norwegian. Anyway, you DO NOT HAVE TO use Nordan40 table language.

Best regards,

 

[footpad]

I think almir's on the right track. The Paradox for Windows format supports a wide range of language drivers (more than 100), one far broader than Paradox/DOS could use.

NorDan40 was one of the older Paradox/DOS language drivers, one that I don't imagine has been updated over the years.

You might take a look at the BDE32.HLP file, generally located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Borland Shared\BDE. Search the index for the "Language Drivers" topic. This provides a list of available language drivers.

Based on a quick review, it appears that 13 of these (listed below) may be appropriate for your needs:

'ascii' ANSI         1252 (ANSI)     Binary
Borland NOR Latin-1  1252 (ANSI)     Norwegian
Paradox 'ascii'      CODE PAGE 437   Binary
Paradox 'intl' 850   CODE PAGE 850   Brazilian Portuguese, French Canadian
Paradox 'intl'       CODE PAGE 437   Multilingual Western Europe
Paradox 'nordan'     CODE PAGE 865   Norwegian/Danish (Pdx 3.5)
Paradox 'nordan40'   CODE PAGE 865   Norwegian/Danish (Pdx 4.0 & later)
Pdox ANSI Intl       1252 (ANSI)     Compatible w/Paradox "intl"
Pdox ANSI Intl850    CODE PAGE 850   Compatible w/Paradox "intl850"
Pdox ANSI Nordan4    1252 (ANSI)     Compatible w/Paradox "nordan40"
SQL Link ROMAN8      Roman-8         Binary
'WEurope' ANSI       1252 (ANSI)     Multilingual Western Europe

As you can see, each of these is tied to different code pages, country codes, and character sets. Hopefully, one of these matches the characters you need. (You'll need to pull the name of the driver from the Help file, as I had to delete that column to fit the data to these pages.)

Also, take a few moments to review the commentary in these Help topics, as well as the "Character set issues" (topic in Paradox's Help file (be sure to also review the Related topics).

While you're likely familiar with much of the material, the details will help you choose the set of language drivers that best your needs. Case in point, you can use multiple language drivers in a given database. It's not recommended, but if you find your memo table needs a different character set than the rest of your tables, Paradox lets you do that.

In the case of memos, I don't see where that would lead to too many problems. Just be sure you use compatible language drivers, especially when using alphanumerics as linking values; otherwise, you may see some strange results.

You may also wish to consider using a different table format for your memo table. Remember that Paradox for Windows (BDE, actually) supports heterogeneous joins across all supported file types. This means you can freely mix Paradox tables with dBASE, FoxPro, or even Access tables in an application.

Also, be sure to configure your default language drivers appropriately with the BDE Administrator. Every table has a language driver. If you don't choose a default, you'll get the one chosen for your local version of Paradox. This is a frequent source of confusion in this area, so extra care can really pay off.

And, if none of this gets you where you need to be, don't forget that you can also use ObjectPAL to RTF files as formatted memos. It takes a bit of extra work, but can help broaden the support for additional characters an symbols in your text data. And, when the work is finished, your users don't even need to be aware that their memos are stored in a completely different file type.

Hope this helps...

-- Lance

 

[jlockley]

Ascii international does not solve this problem.

Could you expound on heterogenous joins? I imagine it's pretty complicated.

 

[footpad]

jlockey,

Heterogeneous joins is the marketing phrase used to refer to linking different table formats, e.g. Paradox tables to dBASE tables to SQL Server tables to whatever.

It's not complicated at all; you simply need to make certain there are common values between the tables.

The linking technique depends on the type of file you're trying to link them with. For example:

-- Use example elements in QBE queries

-- Joins in SQL statements

-- Dragged connections in data models

And so on.

One of the unsung powers of Paradox is that BDE lets you work with any table it supports as if it were a native table type.

Getting the connection properly defined can be a chore, but once that's done, using the data is very straightforward.

Hope this helps...

-- Lance

 

[jlockley]

Thanks.