Provided are a method, system, and program for creating a string of Unicode characters stored in a memory of a computer. A constant is created whose data type is a non-Unicode data type, wherein the constant specifies non-Unicode data to convert to Unicode. A string of non-Unicode characters are stored in the constant which is stored in the memory of the computer. A specification of a code page is retrieved in which the non-Unicode character string is encoded. The non-Unicode character string stored in the constant is translated into a Unicode character string responsive to the specification of the code page and the Unicode character string is stored in the constant stored in the memory of the computer.