Multi Language Support

Hi All,

We are building an application (WinNT) accessing an Oracle 8.0.5 database. The problem is that we supplied it to a customer which is using a character set other the the one we created our database with. Since they need to read data in non-English characters (Hebrew in that case, but the problem will re-occur with Spanish too...) we need to allow the client's local applications communicate with both the databases.
I know we should build the database with the local character set, but I want to avoid destroying the data and rebuilding the database (although we would if there is no other alternative...).

What I thought of is this: In my application, I would call
>> ::SetEnvironmentVariable("NLS_LANG", "AMERICAN_AMERICA.IW8ISO8859P8");
which is the character the user's db is created with. (our db was created with the "AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8ISO8859P1" character set)

so that the same client machine will be able to address both our db and the local db. Just one minor problem: for some reason, it doesn't work. Or, am I doing something wrong? What is the scope of WinNT environment variables, anyway? When does an application takes those values from the Oracle entry in the registry? when does it use the environment variables values?

I would appreciate any help or advise.
Also, if it's not too much trouble, please reply to my address in addition to that news group since i cannot follow the posts on a regular basis.
--
Don't take your organs to heaven.
Heaven knows we need them here... Received on Mon Oct 18 1999 - 05:19:21 CDT