Setting NLS Parameters

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National Language Support (NLS) parameters determine the locale-specific behavior on both the client and the server. NLS parameters can be specified several ways. In this guide, altering parameters for the user session and overriding the parameters in SQL functions are discussed. Both of these techniques are accomplished through the use of SQL statements.

You can alter the NLS parameters settings by:

• Setting NLS parameters in an ALTER SESSION statement to override the default values that are set for the session in the initialization parameter file, or that are set by the client with environment variables. For example:

  ALTER SESSION SET NLS_SORT = french;

  Note that the changes that you make with the ALTER SESSION statement apply only to the current user session and are not present the next time you log in.

  
  

  See Also: "Setting NLS Parameters" in Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for details on setting the NLS parameters Oracle Database SQL Reference for more information about the ALTER SESSION statement Oracle Database Administrator's Guide for information about the initialization parameter file Oracle Database Reference for information about initialization parameters used for globalization support

  
  

• Using NLS parameters within a SQL function to override the default values that are set for the session in the initialization parameter file, set for the client with environment variables, or set for the session by the ALTER SESSION statement. For example:

  TO_CHAR(hiredate,'DD/MON/YYYY','nls_date_language = FRENCH')

  
  

  See Also: "Setting NLS Parameters" in Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for information about setting the NLS parameters Oracle Database SQL Reference for more information about SQL functions, including the TO_CHAR function

  
  

Additional methods for setting the NLS parameters include the use of NLS environment variables on the client, which may be platform-dependent, to specify locale-dependent behavior for the client and also to override the default values set for the session in the initialization parameter file. For example, on a Linux system:

% setenv NLS_SORT FRENCH