Have you already installed SQLcl Liquibase or standalone LIquibase?

That's great.

However, after a while, you may notice something wrong with your UTF-8 encoding - either when you generate objects using Liquibase(standalone or SQLcl) or while using your local file to update your schema.

My example

What I have:

• Autonomous Database at Oracle OCI with default settings

• schema user TEST

I created a simple function called f_utf8_test using Web SQL Developer.

create or replace function f_utf8_test return varchar2
  as
begin
   return '£ ł ź ć 8 ó ą';
end f_utf8_test;

Windows users

SQLcl Liquibase (solution)

(installed exactly withthis guide)

Export this function from the database:

Preview exported files.

Ok, it doesn't look good.

Solution?

Before running SQLcl, set this:

set JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS=-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8

Do it every time.

No, just joking :)

Go to environment variables:

Create a new variable

Variable name: JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS

Variable value: -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8

Save it.

Re-run your terminal and run SQLcl again:

Export again.

Looks good now.

Standalone Liquibase (solution)

(installed exactly with this tutorial)

If you have encoding problems with standalone Liquibase, go to liquibase.bat file and edit it:

Add this:

IF NOT DEFINED JAVA_OPTS set JAVA_OPTS=-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8

That will do the work.

MacOS user? You shouldn't have those problems

OK, I can save you some time now.

It will just work if you have a Mac, and you shouldn't have encoding problems.

Do you want a proof? Continue reading.

Happy enough? You can stop reading now :)

SQLcl Liquibase (proof)

(installed exactly this way)

Now, I will export this function using SQLcl Liquibase:

liquibase generate-object -obt function -obn f_utf8_test -sql

And my generated files.... are...just ok

Now, I will change my function and update my TEST schema with a new function version.

lb update -chf f_utf8_test_function.xml

Preview that function in SQL Developer Web.

Still good.

Standalone Liquibase (proof)

(installed that way)

Similar steps to do.

Let's deploy this SQL changeset:

liquibase update --changelogFile=f_utf8_test_function.sql

How does it look after deploying to the database?

Still good.

Any thoughts?

I like my Mac :)

Thanks for reading.

PS

If you're still struggling with some encoding problems on Windows, try this.