# MSSQL Execute SQL - Unicode capable?
**URL:** https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601
**Category:** Discussion
**Created:** [March 15, 2018, 2:30am UTC](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601 "2018-03-15T02:30:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@holger](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/u/holger)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2018, 2:30am UTC](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601/1 "2018-03-15T02:30:25Z")
Hi all,
i use the MSSQL Exectute SQL action to retrieve translations for our setups.
The langauages used are, German, English and Japanese. I use a query and output the result to a file (Log behaves the same) and all japanese characters are replaced by “?”. Also the file encoding is set to ANSI (explaining the ?).
I tried using the Create Text file Action to create a UTF-8 file, this works, but the SQL Actions overwrites this.
Is there anything i can do?
Thanks
Holger
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### Author:  [@holger](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/u/holger)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2018, 2:33am UTC](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601/2 "2018-03-15T02:33:47Z")
The documentation of sqlcmd [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/tools/sqlcmd-utility](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/tools/sqlcmd-utility)states it is possible to use -u for unicode output, can i specify this somewhere in the action?
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### Author:  [@holger](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/u/holger)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2018, 8:44am UTC](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601/3 "2018-03-16T08:44:52Z")
Ok i now help myself with writing the query to a textfile and using the “Execute Program” action to run sqlcmd.exe with the additional parameter -u (needs to be defined in addtion to -o for the output file)
So i get what i want, but now i have a different problem, on my development machine sqlcmd.exe is in a path A, while on the build server ist is in path B.
Can i read the configured path from finalbuilder?
Thanks
Holger
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### Author:  [@holger](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/u/holger)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2018, 9:12am UTC](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601/4 "2018-03-16T09:12:50Z")
Got it!
FinalBuilder8.ini in %programdata%\VSoft\FinalBuilder8
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### Author:  [@Vincent](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/u/Vincent)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2018, 12:08pm UTC](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601/5 "2018-03-16T12:08:44Z")
Apologies for the slow response, been dealing with server issues today (bios upgrades broke our hyper-v cluster).
I will add an option for the unicode output file for the next update.
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### Author:  [@holger](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/u/holger)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 8:03am UTC](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601/6 "2018-03-19T08:03:16Z")
> I will add an option for the unicode output file for the next update.
Cool, Thanks!
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### Author:  [@dev1](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/u/dev1)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2024, 8:00am UTC](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601/7 "2024-07-08T08:00:02Z")
Hi, where is this options for manage unicode?
Thanks
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### Author:  [@Vincent](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/u/Vincent)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2024, 11:18pm UTC](https://www.finalbuilder.com/forums/t/mssql-execute-sql-unicode-capable/2601/8 "2024-07-08T23:18:27Z")
It’s on the output tab under the output file name field.