NLS - Language, Characterset, Storage, etc. questions

From: <argosy22_at_my-deja.com>
Date: 2000/01/31
Message-ID: <874q3h$2hl$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1

We are using Oracle 7.3.4. I have read the documentation for National Language Support. However, I'm still confused.

To me, as far as language is concerned, intuitively, there is 1) storage,
and
2) display to screen

Is this correct, or am I missing something? Can you control both of these?

Does Oracle store everything in its own proprietary format? And you can display to screen in the language format you like?

When Oracle is set up, do you have to specify the storage method? (So, if you were in Japan, you would specify 2 byte storage). Does the operating system and hardware affect this?

After querying our system, I'm rather confused. On one hand, our Unix environment variables indicate ( 8 bits) NLS_LANG=AMERICAN.WE8ISO8859P1.
But, everything else seems to indicate only 7 bits: US7ASCII

Can anyone explain if our system handle foreign languages?

Our system has the following:

Unix Environment variables:

NLS_DATE_FORMAT=DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANG=AMERICAN
NLS_LANG=AMERICAN.WE8ISO8859P1
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS=.,

.profile

ORACLE_BASE=/apps/oracle
ORACLE_DOC=/apps/oracle/doc
ORACLE_HOME=/apps/oracle/product/734
ORACLE_SID=ntst1
ORACLE_TERM=xsun5

PATH=.:/apps/oracle/product/734/bin:/opt/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ccs/bin: /usr/ucb

V$parameter:

Select substr(name, 1, 25) name,
substr(value, 1, 25) value
from v$parameter
where upper(name) like ('NLS%')
order by 1

NAME                      VALUE
------------------------- -------------------------
nls_currency
nls_date_format
nls_date_language
nls_iso_currency
nls_language              AMERICAN
nls_numeric_characters
nls_sort
nls_territory             AMERICA

sys.props$:

Select

substr(NAME, 1, 20) name,
substr(VALUE$, 1, 20) value$,
substr(comment$, 1, 35) comment$

from props$

NAME                 VALUE$               COMMENT$
-------------------- --------------------
-----------------------------------
DICT.BASE            2                    dictionary base tables version
#
NLS_LANGUAGE         AMERICAN             Language
NLS_TERRITORY        AMERICA              Territory
NLS_CURRENCY         $                    Local currency
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY     AMERICA              ISO currency
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTE .,                   Numeric characters
NLS_DATE_FORMAT      DD-MON-YY            Date format
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE    AMERICAN             Date language
NLS_CHARACTERSET     US7ASCII             Character set
NLS_SORT             BINARY               Linguistic definition
NLS_CALENDAR         GREGORIAN            Calendar system
NLS_RDBMS_VERSION    7.3.4.0.1            RDBMS version for NLS

parameters
...

dual:

select userenv('LANGUAGE')
from dual

USERENV('LANGUAGE')

AMERICAN_AMERICA.US7ASCII Thanks,

Argosy

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Before you buy. Received on Mon Jan 31 2000 - 00:00:00 CST