3.12 National Language Support (NLS)
                     -------------------------------

 - Available character sets:

    CL8ISO8859P5     ISO for minis (HP, DEC, SUN ...)

    CL8MSWINDOW31    Microsoft Windows 3.1 8-bit Latin/Cyrillic
                       (OLD. NOT PRESENTED IN 7.3 AND ABOVE!)

    CL8MSWIN1251     Microsoft Windows Code Page 1251 8-bit (New)

    RU8PC866         IBM-PC Code Page 866 8-bit (Alternate)

    CL8MACCYRILLIC   Mac 8-bit Latin/Cyrillic

    CL8MACCYRILLICS  Mac Server 8-bit Latin/Cyrillic

    CL8EBCDIC1025    EBCDIC IBM Code Page 1025 8-bit Cyrillic

    CL8BS2000        Siemens EBCDIC.EHC.LC 8-bit Cyrillic

    RU8PC855         IBM-PC Code Page 855 8-bit (unusable)

    RU8BESTA         BESTA 8-bit

    RU8KOI8R         Internet de-facto standard

- How to set NLS support on client or server sides

  - Server side

     To ensure automatic charset translations russian charset
     should be installed on server side by either:

     1. CREATE DATABASE  .... CHARSET <charset>

                          or

     2. Check table SYS.PROPS$ and update it if necessary.
        (For Oracle7 only. Does NOT work in Oracle8!!!)


        update SYS.PROPS$ set VALUE$ = '<charset>'
        where Name = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET';
        COMMIT;

        BE CAREFUL!!! If wrong <charset> is specified you will
        NOT BE ABLE TO STARTUP database!!!

        You can find correct  chaset_names with:

             select Value from SYS.V$NLS_VALID_VALUES
             where Parameter = 'CHARACTERSET'
             order by value;

        Note: On UNIX platforms charset_name RU8PC866 is
              available only beginning with Oracle RDBMS 7.1.3 or
              later!!!.

  - Client side

        LANGUAGE   - v6 tools (SQL*FORMS,... SQL*PLUS 3.0)

        NLS_LANG   - v7 tools (ORACLE*FORMS,... SQL*PLUS 3.1)


    - UNIX & VMS

        NLS_LANG env. variable (logical).

        NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.RU8PC855;export

        NLS_LANG=RUSSIAN_CIS.RU8PC855;...

    - DOS.
                CONFIG.ORA

      V6 tools (SQL*FORMS, SQL*RW...):

          LANGUAGE=AMERICAN_AMERICA.RU8PC866
                     or (for Russian)
          LANGUAGE=russian_USSR.ru8pc866
          NLS_LANG=russian_CIS.ru8pc866

                For DOS always use two lines:
          LANGUAGE=american_america.ru8pc866
          NLS_LANG=american_america.ru8pc866


      SQL*PLUS 3.1,EXP/IMP & Loader 7.0.15 for DOS:

          NLS_LANG=russian_CIS.ru8pc866

    - MS-WINDOWS

       C:\WINDOWS\ORACLE.INI

            NLS_LANG=RUSSIAN_CIS.CL8MSWIN1251

    - NetWare

             SYS:SYSTEM\CONFIG.ORA

        NLMs:  EXP/IMP, SQL*LOADER, SQL*DBA

         NLS_LANG=RUSSIAN_CIS.RU8PC866

    -  UNIX

        NLS_LANG=RUSSIAN_CIS.CL8ISO8859P5;export

        for V6 tools (FORMS,MENU,RW)
        LANGUAGE=RUSSIAN_USSR.CL8ISO8859P5;export

- Character set conversion

    Character conversion can be tested using SQL DUMP and CHR
    functions by specifying the numeric (binary) value of a
    character in a given encoding scheme. This method provides an
    important testing technique sins a terminal using a
    designated character encoding testing technique since a
    terminal using a designated character encoding scheme is not
    necessary.

      SELECT DUMP (CHR(x),'<target_char-set>','<source_char_set>')
      FROM DUAL;

      SELECT DUMP (CHR(246),'WE81SO8859P1','WE8PC850') FROM DUAL;

    This technique can also be test case conversion

      SELECT DUMP(UPPER(CHR(231))) FROM DUAL;

    and to directly insert and select character data independent of
    character set conversion.

      INSERT INTO <table> (<column>) VALUES (CHR(231)||CHR(232)||CHR(233));
      SELECT DUMP (<column>) FROM <table>;

    B4. Can character data be converted explicitly?

        Yes. Applications can use the CONVERT function to explicitly  convert
    data from one encoding scheme to another.

       CONVERT (<column>,<dest_char_set>,<src_char_set>)

    were <dest_char_set> is the encoding scheme to convert data to and <src_char_set>
    is the encoding scheme of the data to be converted. For example,


       SELECT CONVERT (ENAME,'WE8HPHP','WE8DEC') FROM EMP;

    generates a report from data entered as DEC 8-bit character set for
    output to a laserJet printer using HP Wespten European 8-bit
    character set.