Locale settings

The application locale defines the character encoding used by programs.

Define the charset locale and length semantics for server-side programs and DB Sync client apps:

GMA/GMI/GWA apps are implicitly running in UTF-8 and CHAR length semantics.

For server programs, the locale can be defined by LANG/LC_ALL and the length semantics is defined with the FGL_LENGTH_SEMANTICS environment variables. For more information, go to FGL_LENGTH_SEMANTICS in the Genero Business Development Language User Guide.

We strongly recommend using UTF-8 and CHAR length semantics, because DB Sync client apps implemented with GMA, GMI or GWA run in this locale. If a user enters Unicode characters, it must be possible to store these characters in the central database.

By default, the DB Sync server program will not start if the local is different from UTF-8 + CHAR length semantics. However, if the DB Sync framework must connect to an existing database not using UTF-8, or using BYTE length semantics, the DB Sync server can be started with the -l option to skip UTF-8/CLS checking. In this configuration, DB Sync client apps sending Unicode characters not supported in the server-side locale/charset will result in conversion errors.