Differences in prepared vs. direct statements using Oracle ODBC

Question

I'm using an Oracle database with a collation different to my OS language. I'm accessing the database using the ODBC driver. When I prepare a statement (e.g. a "select * from x where=?"), that involves special non-ASCII characters supported by the DB's collation, I'm finding the data row with the characters. When I execute the select directly with the argument in the sql string, the data row isn't found.

Answer 1

Pure guess on my part, but it may be because your client computer isn't encoding the sql string with the argument written into it correctly. I think that if your client is set to a different regional setting than the DB collation, the character array containing the select statement that gets sent to Oracle would contain "incorrect" bytes where the original funky characters were located - Oracle would interpret these as some character other than the one you originally sent (causing the row to not be found).

Is there any reason you can't just use the parameterized approach (since it is working correctly)?