During operations on text data such as assignments of a literal
    to a text column or the comparison of two string variables,
    Oracle Rdb carries out character set compatibility checks to
    ensure that the operation is viable.

    Without automatic translation being enabled this checking is
    quite restrictive in that in most cases the two text objects must
    have identical character set before the operation is allowed.

    The automatic translation feature allows you to choose whether
    the character set checking should be restrictive or whether
    Rdb should attempt a character set translation, similar to
    that provided by the TRANSLATE function prior to assignments
    or comparisons.

    With automatic translation enabled you may easily carry out
    operations that previously required additional translations steps
    to be carried out explicitly.

    1. Carry out comparisons between columns that contain data
       encoded in different character sets that have common character
       subsets, for example, DEC_MCS and DEC_KANJI have ASCII in
       common.

    2. Use the same SQL code to access database data irrespective of
       the client's environment. For example, a user on a Japanese
       PC accessing a DEC_MCS column would have to add TRANSLATE
       statements to the SQL commands to convert the DEC_MCS to
       SHIFT_JIS before they could display it on their screen. With
       automatic translation enabled and a Display Character set
       specified, this would not be required.

    3. Enter data from a native interface without explicit
       translations. For example, users using SHIFT_JIS on a
       Japanenese PC may access and insert data into a DE_KANJI
       column in the database without explicit translations
       statements.

    You may enabled automatic translation by:

    1. Using a SET AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION statement

    2. Defining the SQL$AUTOMATIC_TRANSLATION logical name

    SQL$AUTOMATIC_TRANSLATION

    The logical name SQL$AUTOMATIC_TRANSLATION allows SQL users to
    specify that automatic translations should be enabled by default.

    The logical SQL$AUTOMATIC_TRANSLATION may be placed in any
    logical name table accessible to the client SQL process.

    If the logical name is set to either the string 'TRUE' or the
    value 'T' prior to invoking SQL, then automatic translation will
    be enabled by default, any other value will disable automatic
    translation within SQL.