The NCHAR / NVARCHAR data types

IBM® Informix® supports the standard NCHAR and NVARCHAR data types. These types are equivalent to CHAR and VARCHAR (the same character set is used), except that the collation order is locale specific with NCHAR/NVARCHAR types.

Genero BDL syntax does allow to define program variables by using NCHAR / NVARCHAR keywords. However, the character strings of Informix NCHAR/NVARCHAR database columns can be managed by program variables defined with the CHAR/VARCHAR types.

Note: Since the character set is identical for NCHAR/NVARCHAR and CHAR/VARCHAR columns in an Informix database, no specific consideration needs to be given for the "N" character types.

When extracting a database schema with fgldbsch, NCHAR/NVARCHAR types will be identified in the .sch file by the native Informix type codes 15 and 16. When compiling .4gl or .per sources referencing NCHAR/NVARCHAR columns in the schema file, the compilers will automatically use the CHAR/VARCHAR Genero BDL types for the type codes 15 and 16.