Changing the Character Set 1

[JohnBates]

hello experts,

We sure miss the 'search' feature don't we?

This is 10g.

After installing Oracle 10g, the software vendor informed me that the character set must be US7ASCII (I had selected West European WE8MSWIN1252).

Both of these are in the Western European family of sets I think.

There is only 1 instance/home and no application/user data has been loaded yet.

Will it be safe to just run the
ALTER DATABASE CHARACTER SET US7ASCII or am I better off to uninstall Oracle and re-install ?

Thanks, John

 

[JohnBates]

.... and a related question, please.

How can I determine for certain what the value is for the present character set?

Thanks. John

 

[SantaMufasa]

To determine current database settings:

select * from NLS_DATABASE_PARAMETERS;

I have never been able to successfully change characters sets in Oracle without rebuilding the database.

You do not need to uninstall/re-install Oracle. You will, however, need to drop and recreate the database.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]

 

[JohnBates]

Very useful information, SantaMufasa.

The db is simply the default of orcl - when I recreate this db it will prompt for the character set i'm sure. That will work.

You have saved me some time.

Thanks! John