Unicode character set for EBCDIC. Length of SQL CHAR types can be specified in number of characters. Binary order of the SQL CHAR columns is same as binary order of the SQL NCHAR columns if the data consists of same supplementary characters. Consequently, these columns sort the same for identical strings. Disadvantages: Supplementary characters occupy six bytes instead of four bytes only. Consequently, supplementary characters need to be converted. UTFE is not a Unicode standard encoding. Clients requiring UTF-8 encoding must convert data on retrieval and storage. Mksh nega-UTF-8 Mksh is a POSIX shell with a “utf8-mode” that complicates porting to EBCDIC. Instead of implementing UTF-EBCDIC (which is “not used by anyone”), the developers found it easier to just use normal UTF-8 and convert it to EBCDIC by pretending it’s the “extended ASCII” encoding for the current code page. Doing so destroys EBCDIC control characters not found in ASCII, however. See also UTF-1 UTF-8 BOCU-1 References External links V.S. Umamaheswaran, Unicode Technical Report #16: the definition of UTF-EBCDIC (2002-04-16) Character encoding Unicode Transformation Formats