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To specify how the database will act and react to language-dependent actions, it is important to have a method of control over the way the database will behave under given conditions. These behaviors are wide and varied but are controlled in three simple ways: initialization parameters, environment variables, and the ALTER SESSION command. Initialization ParametersThere are two primary initialization parameters (each with its own subparameters) that you can use to assist you with different ways that your database will deal with different aspects of multilingual actions. These are NLS_LANGUAGE and NLS_TERRITORY. NLS_LANGUAGEThe NLS_LANGUAGE parameter provides you with the ability to specify the way that language will be handled in messages, day and month names, month abbreviations, and symbols that are date and time related (for example, A.D., B.C., a.m., and p.m.). It also controls the default sorting mechanism for character data. If not specified otherwise, NLS_LANGUAGE defaults to AMERICAN. NLS_LANGUAGE has two subparameters:
NLS_LANGUAGE determines the default values for NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE and NLS_SORT. NLS_TERRITORYThe NLS_TERRITORY parameter allows you to control day and week numbering, the default date format, the decimal character, group separator, and the default ISO and local currency symbols for your database. NLS_TERRITORY has the following subparameters:
The following territories have the euro symbol added for dual currency support: Austria, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Portugal, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Greece, United Kingdom, and Ireland. The ISO character sets have specified code points for the euro symbol. These settings are all enabled at the session level (meaning that they are dynamic initialization parameters) and, therefore, provide you the flexibility to allow for the storage of information from France at the same time as you are allowing data to be accessed and stored from Greece, Germany, Spain, and the United States. Okay, but how do we set these parameters with environment variables? |
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