Xref: alice comp.databases.oracle.misc:47841 comp.databases.oracle.server:75605 comp.databases.oracle.tools:36270 Path: alice!news-feed.fnsi.net!newsfeed.icl.net!btnet-peer!btnet!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!do.de.uu.net!dortmund.de.uu.net!aedgate.AED-Graphics.de!not-for-mail From: Martin Ameskamp Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.tools,comp.databases.oracle.misc,comp.databases.oracle.server Subject: Re: Oracle isalpha() function? Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 08:19:51 +0100 Organization: AED Graphics AG, Germany Lines: 31 Message-ID: <383E3497.9D8857@aed-graphics.de> References: <383BBC12.DB12F6A5@crepido.com> <383BD185.FEC37F21@bentley.com> <383BDCDE.C39676B3@unilog.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: aedgate.AED-Graphics.de 943600819 18941 193.96.252.9 (26 Nov 1999 07:20:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: postmaster@AED-Graphics.de NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Nov 1999 07:20:19 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 [de] (WinNT; I) Pierre Charpenay schrieb: > > Another way is to use the (nls_)upper and (nls_)lower functions. > That is, if UPPER(c) is not equal to LOWER(c) then c is alphabetic, else, it > is not ! I'm afraid that's not general enough - the original question referred explicitly to characters alphabetic in the current locale. My setting for NLS_LANG is german_germany.we8iso8859p1, and the following SQL-Statement returns two identical 'ASCII' values, which would make the character 'ß' non-alphabetic (that's the ISO character 'LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S', which looks a bit like a lowercase beta). Since there is no uppercase 'ß', nls_upper and nls_lower both return the same value for 'ß' (same for upper and lower without the nls). SQL> select ascii(nls_upper('ß')), ascii(nls_lower('ß')) from dual; ASCII(NLS_UPPER('ß')) ASCII(NLS_LOWER('ß')) --------------------- --------------------- 223 223 Martin PS My opinions, not my company's -- Dr. Martin Ameskamp, AED Graphics AG Mallwitzstr. 1-3, 53177 Bonn Tel. 0228/9542-0, Fax 0228/9542-111 Email: ameskamp@aed-graphics.de