D Configuring Oracle Database Globalization Support

D.1.1.1 Determining the Operating System Locale

The locale setting of your operating system session determines the language of the user interface and the globalization behavior for components such as Oracle Universal Installer, Oracle Net Configuration Assistant, and Oracle Database Configuration Assistant. It also determines the globalization behavior of Oracle Database sessions created by a user application through Oracle JDBC driver, unless overridden by the application.

Open the Control Panel from the Start menu to modify the operating system locale settings. On Windows 2000, click Regional Options. On Windows XP and Windows 2003, click Regional and Language Options.

To set locale for the current operating system user on Windows 2000, select the desired locale from the pop-up list in "Settings for the current user" area on the General tab. On Windows XP and Windows 2003, select the desired locale from the pop-up list in "Standards and formats" area on the Regional Options tab.

Some of the locales may be unavailable until you install required operating system support files. On Windows 2000, make sure that the relevant language group is selected in "Language settings for the system" area on the General tab. On Windows XP and Windows 2003, make sure the relevant check boxes are checked in "Supplemental language support" area on Languages tab.

Some Oracle components, such as SQL*Plus, require that also the Windows System Locale is set to the language in which the components are to be run. System Locale is called "Language for non-Unicode programs" on Windows XP and Windows 2003. To set the System Locale on Windows 2000, click the "Set default..." button on the General tab and select the locale from the displayed pop-up list. On Windows XP and Windows 2003, select the locale from the pop-up list in the "Language for non-Unicode programs" area on the Advanced tab.

D.1.1.2 Configuring Locale and Character Sets with the NLS_LANG Environment Variable

The NLS_LANG environment variable determines the language of the user interface and the globalization behavior for components such as SQL*Plus, exp, and imp. It sets the language and territory used by the client application and the database. It also declares the character set for entering and displaying data by the client application.

The NLS_LANG environment variable uses the following format:

NLS_LANG=language_territory.characterset

In this format:

• language specifies the language used for displaying user interface, error messages, sorting, day names, and month names

• territory specifies the conventions for default date, monetary and numeric formats

• characterset specifies the encoding of the database client, which is the character set for data entered or displayed by a client program

  In most cases, this is the Oracle character set that corresponds to the Windows ANSI Code Page as determined by the System Locale.

The NLS_LANG parameter on Windows can be set

• in Registry under the subkey corresponding to a given Oracle home,

• as an environment variable.

When you install Oracle Database components and the NLS_LANG parameter is not yet set in the Registry subkey of the target Oracle home, Oracle Universal Installer sets the NLS_LANG parameter to a default value derived from the operating system locale for the current user. See the following table.

Table D-1 lists the default NLS_LANG values for various Windows locales.

D.1.1.3 NLS_LANG Settings in Console Mode and Batch Mode

Before you can use Oracle utilities such as SQL*Plus, SQL Loader, Import, and Export from the Command Prompt window, you may have to set the character set field of the NLS_LANG parameter to a value different than the one set in Registry.

This is required because programs running in console mode use, with a few exceptions, a different code page (character set) from programs running in GUI mode. The default Oracle home NLS_LANG parameter in the Registry is always set to the appropriate GUI code page. If you do not set the NLS_LANG parameter for the console mode session correctly, incorrect character conversion can corrupt error messages and data.

For Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese, the console (OEM) code page is identical to the GUI (ANSI) code page. In this case, you do not need to set the NLS_LANG parameter. For other languages, set the correct character set value of NLS_LANG by issuing a SET NLS_LANG command in the same Command Prompt window in which you want to start the affected utility.

Similarly, in batch mode, set the correct character set value of NLS_LANG by inserting a SET NLS_LANG command at the start of the batch procedure, according to the character set of the files to be processed in the procedure.

To find the current console code page, issue the CHCP command in the Command Prompt window. Use the reported code page number to look up the corresponding Oracle character set name in Table D-2.

Table D-2 lists the Oracle character sets that correspond to the console mode code pages.