This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(9.6, 94%, 10%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EPV%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Hi.
I am using BCP utility to transfer data from SQL table to a delimited file.
Below is the example of the query used:
BCP "SELECT 1 as First,
quotename(COUNTRY,'""') as COUNTRY, STATUS, QUOTENAME('¸','""') as last FROM TableName " queryout "path of file" -T -S servername -d DBInstance -b 500 -c -C 65001 -t~
In the query the last character is ¸ - i mean QUOTENAME('¸','""')
But when the file is generated, the last character is coming as ?
what causes the character change while doing a BCP ?
How did you execute the BCP tool? In Command Prompt window?
Hi .
The BCP is executed from a C# console application using the below code. This error is happening for a specific database alone. I have tried the code for a different database, and the output is coming as shown in query. Does the data being in - Unicode, double byte characters , have an impact to this conversion ?
public static void ExecuteProcess(string fileName, string Query, string servername, string dbinstance)
{
using (var process = new Process())
{
process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
process.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
process.StartInfo.FileName = "BCP";
process.StartInfo.Arguments = "\"" + Query + " \" queryout " + "\"" + fileName.Trim() + "\"" + " -T -S " + servername + " -d " + dbinstance + " -b 500 -c -C 65001 -t~";
process.Start();
string outputString = process.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
string errorString = process.StandardError.ReadToEnd();
}
}
Keep in mind that BCP runs in the command-line window which uses your OEM code page. So that cedilla is likely to be interpreted as something else, and then it goes downhill from there.
Change '¸'to nchar(184) to avoid the issue.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(67.2, 1%, 16%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3ETP%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
How did you view the file to determine the value was ?. That is like a display problem in your viewer and not an output problem from BCP.
Your viewer is displaying ? because it doesn't know how to display the value 184.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(211.20000000000002, 78%, 30%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3ECZ%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Hi,
>"SELECT 1 as First,quotename(COUNTRY,'""') as COUNTRY, STATUS, QUOTENAME('¸','""') as last FROM TableName "queryout "path of file"
When I try to test this sql statement in a database (Chinese_PRC_CI_AS) different from the default server collation (SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS), the last character is coming as ? in returned results. Then executed the BCP command to output the data to the file and got the same result.
I Change '¸' to nchar(184) as Erland suggested, and the problem was solved.