title: not able to read Special characters from oracle database
body: <p>I am reading some text data from oracle database in python. where I have to flag values which have some special characters and change it to something specific based on its value
  Some names have special characters like ą,Ł etc.</p>
  <p>While some are getting read as they are. But ą is being read as A. As a result, even when the data value in Database is a special character, my python code is not flagging it.</p>
  <p>I even tried using encoding='iso-8859-1' while connecting to the DB, but instead of reading and showing the character as it is , its showing an inverted question mark.</p>
  <p>Please help me on how to read these characters in python as it is.</p>
  <p>I am using cx_Oracle for connecting to the database.
  column in the DB has a value: Mąrią.</p>
  <p>without using any encoding while connecting to db, python is reading this value as Maria.
  But I want it in the same form as it is in the db
  i.e Expected_output : Mąrią.
  Bt the output I am getting if i add encoding='iso-8859-1' is  'M¿ri¿'</p>
  <pre><code>import cx_Oracle
  conn=cx_Oracle.connect('username','pwd','hostname/servicename')
  c=conn.cusrsor()
  sql='select name from con where id='123' #output of this in db is :Mąrią
  z=pd.read_sql(sql,conn)
  </code></pre>
  <p>output in python: Maria</p>
  <p>expected output: same as it is in DB i.e: Mąrią</p>
  <p>if I change the connect to:
  conn=cx_Oracle.connect('username','pwd','hostname/servicename',encoding='iso- 8859-1')</p>
  <p>output in python: 'M¿ri¿'</p>
  <p>expected output: same as it is in DB i.e: Mąrią</p>