Before you modify the database's collation tables, check the OpenEdge/prolang directory for region-specific data definition (.df) files. These are database collation files that can be loaded into an empty database. OpenEdge provides a collection of data definition files, one of which might suit your collation needs. For example, the OpenEdge/prolang/ger directory contains the German-specific data definition files ger850.df and ger8859.df.

To modify how ABL comparisons are performed, start OpenEdge against the database that contains the collation tables you want, or use the collation table (-cpcoll) startup parameter to point to the collation tables you want. When you specify a collation table using the -cpcoll startup parameter, you can point only to tables that reside in the convmap.cp file. If the collation/code-page pair you want does not reside in convmap.cp, you can build your own collation table, as described in Editingthe collation table.