Compare issues with N*type (NCLOB, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2) columns in 5.3 (17346)

Compare/Repair does not work correctly. "Compare" showed out of sync but "compare with repair" showed in sync.

OR

Compare core dumps or Compare shows false out of sync when table is in sync.

There are three known problems:

1) Repair does not work when the key column(s) are NCHAR or NVARCHAR2.

2) When there are more than 5 NCHAR/NVARCHAR2 columns, Compare SIGSEGV due to incorrect memory allocation.

3) When NCHAR or NVARCHAR2 is key column. Compare may report false OOS rows due to the key comparison was strcmp that got confused by the null characters within the NCHAR/NVARCHAR2 strings.

Software bug

WORKAROUND

1. Compare doesn't know how to repair when the key column(s) are NCHAR or NVARCHAR2:

Use "REPAIR1" option instead of regular REPAIR option

sp_ctrl> compare table owner.table_name to owner.table_name target trgt_host@o.trgt_SID repair1

Repair1 will successfully repair the table with N*type columns.

For problems #2 and #3 mentioned in the Problem Description section, there is no workaround.


STATUS

Waiting for fix in a future release. Please read Shareplex 5.3 Release Notes for more information on known issues associated with NCHAR character set.

Applies to versions 5.3.0 and 5.3.1