About

Globalization support enables the storing, processing and retrieval of data in native languages.

The languages that can be stored in an Oracle database are encoded by Oracle Database-supported character sets.

Globalization support ensures that:

• database utilities,
• error messages,
• sort order,
• date,
• time,
• monetary,
• numeric,
• and calendar conventions

adjust to the native language and locale.

Articles Related

• Oracle Database - ORA_NLS

Parameters

Data Dictionary

Applications can check the session, instance, and database NLS parameters by querying the following data dictionary views:

• NLS_SESSION_PARAMETERS shows the NLS parameters and their values for the session that is querying the view. It does not show information about the character set.
• NLS_INSTANCE_PARAMETERS shows the current NLS instance parameters that have been explicitly set and the values of the NLS instance parameters.
• NLS_DATABASE_PARAMETERS shows the values of the NLS parameters for the database. The values are stored in the database.

Applications can check the following NLS dynamic performance views:

• VNLS_VALID_VALUES lists values for the following NLS parameters: NLS_LANGUAGE, NLS_SORT, NLS_TERRITORY, NLS_CHARACTERSET
• VNLS_PARAMETERS shows current values of the following NLS parameters: NLS_CALENDAR, NLS_CHARACTERSET, NLS_CURRENCY, NLS_DATE_FORMAT, NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE, NLS_ISO_CURRENCY, NLS_LANGUAGE, NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS, NLS_SORT, NLS_TERRITORY, NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET, NLS_COMP, NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS, NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXP, NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT, NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT, NLS_TIME_FORMAT, NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT

Documentation / Reference

• NLS_LANG Client Settings and JDBC Drivers
• How to set a NLS session parameter at database level for all sessions
• Changing the Database Character Set - a short overview
• NLS_LANG Explained (How dows Client-Server Character Conversion Work?)
• The correct NLS_LANG in a Windows Environment
• The Priority of NLS Parameters Explained