Hi William, The answer is that it depends on the current user locale.
Generally, Western European languages in Windows use Code Page 1252 for GUI displays and either Code Page 437 (US English) or Code Page 850 for "dos boxes" (the "cmd" prompt). On Windows NT this can be changed manually with the "chcp" command. Changing your actual system locale ("Regional Options") will also change the windows and command line code pages as appropriate. Fair warning: do NOT experiment with Asian locales on European builds of NT 4.0 systems (that you care about). In "Microsoft-ese", the Windows code page is the ANSI code page and the command line is the OEM code page. In this case, ANSI has nothing to do with the standards organization or any particular encoding---it's just a name to differentiate the code page from the OEM flavor. There is documentation on the MS website that I am too pressed for time to lookup the URL for..... On most UNIX-like operating systems, the current locale controls the encoding. In fact, the encoding is part of the locale name. Generally Western European languages use ISO-8859-1 (aka Latin-1). Solaris 2.7 and especially 2.8 add support for nifty new encodings (including UTF-8, a Unicode encoding). If you type "locale" at the shell prompt, you will see a listing of your various locale settings, which will include the current encoding. Unlike Windows, the locale (and thus encoding) apply to both command line and GUI interfaces. Also unlike Windows, the locale setting is process specific. Child processes inherit the parent's environment, so if you change your locale and then launch a GUI program, that program will have a matching locale. Of course, this is a generalization..... Don't forget that file systems and shells have a part to play in your command line excursions. Hope this helps. Addison Addison P. Phillips Globalization Architect / Manager, Globalization Engineering webMethods, Inc. 432 Lakeside Drive, Sunnyvale, CA +1 408.962.5487 (phone) +1 408.210.3569 (mobile) ------------------------------------------------- Internationalization is an architecture. It is not a feature. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Tay, William Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 5:08 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Character encoding at the prompt Hi, Do you have any idea what is the default code page and encoding scheme for MS DOS box in WinNT 4? Is there any command that can give me the info? I am trying to input a string say "fráç" at the prompt, wondering how the characters are encoded. How about at the Unix (Solaris 2.6) prompt, what's the default and how to change? Thanks. Will