Re: Is It Too Late to Set Character Set?

John Hough <q6y_at_ornl.gov> writes:
> ghubert_at_acpub.duke.edu (Gene Hubert) wrote:
> >I have created an Oracle 7.3 instance and db under Windows NT. I have
> >run catalog.sql, catproc.sql, set up rollback segments and tablespaces
> >and one user. I have not set up any user tables.
> >
> >My question: Is it too late to set the character set as follows...?
> >
> > update props$ set VALUE$ = 'WE8ISO8859P1'
> > where NAME = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET';
> >
> >I know I should have done it as soon as the database was created
> >but would prefer not to do it over again.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >gene hubert
> >
>
> Gene:
>
> When I had to change my character set due to a problem in comunicating
> with a 4gl tool Oracle Support strongly reccomended that we go back and
> recreate the database from the beginning setting the character in the
> database creation. In either case I reccomend a cold backup and a
> full export before beginning. And if you do it your way and it doesn't
> work I wouldn't bother wasting a call to oracle support.
>
> Good Luck,
>
> John Hough
>
> Why is there allways time to do it over, but never the time to
> do it right? -- Anonymous DBA
>
>

I had a similar situation. Oracle do recommend to go back and recreate the database, but they supply a set of instructions to do what you want, in the way you describe.

The main issue is whether the two character sets are compatible in the character vals they hold. If the DB is US7ASCII (as mine was) there is no issue in converting to WE8ISO8859P1.

The new value doesn't take effect until the instance is next restarted, so it's probably best to shutdown, backup, startup, convert, shutdown, startup, test. Received on Sat Dec 14 1996 - 00:00:00 CST