I am developing against a file spec that lists the data type for certain fields as
CHAR(<length>)
The spec is for a fixed width flat file. In most cases, possible values to populate the fields are obvious (either delineated in a list of choices, or simply alpha/numeric by design). One of the fields stores an error message, which is populated by the other party according to their system's behavior; it could be specified in a somewhat "freehand" manner.
I would like to make the assumption that this data will be stored as ASCII text (for the purpose of setting up data structures). Is there a way that I can ensure the file will not contain Unicode data in this field, based on the field being specified as simply CHAR(100)?
Note: I am coming from a SQL Server background, where I would use CHAR for ASCII and NCHAR for Unicode - I'm wondering if there is a similar way to specify the difference when creating an interface document.