Files and Character Encoding
Whenever you read to or write from an entity external to the database, there is a possibility that the entity is using a different character set than InterSystems IRIS. The most common scenario is working with files.
At the lowest level, you use the Open command to open a file or other device. This command can accept a parameter that specifies the translation table to use when translating characters to or from that device. For details, see the I/O Device Guide. Then InterSystems IRIS uses that table to translate characters as needed.
Similarly, when you use the object-based file APIs, you specify the TranslateTable property of the file.
(Note that the production adapter classes instead provide properties to specify the foreign character set — to be used as the expected character encoding system of input data and the desired character encoding of output data. In this case, you specify a standard character set name, choosing from the set supported by InterSystems.)
