Character Set /National Character Set

[vinit]

Hi,
This might seem silly but can I create a DB which supports all the languages - eg. FRENCH, CHINESE, ENGLISH.
Can I change the NLS_LANG parameter without bouncing the DB.. ?

Regards,

[pwoneill]

You can change NLS_LANGUAGE with an alter session statement, or you can change your NLS_LANG environment variable without bouncing the db.

[apfaunts]

By changing NLS_LANG you would not help yourself to support all those languages if your character set is default us7ascii.
Do select * from nls_database_parameters;
look for NLS_CHARACTERSET and if it is US7ASCII or anything else but UTF8 you can not support FRENCH, CHINESE, ENGLISH together in one database.
If you are on oracle 8i and your database's character set is us7ascii you can follow instructions from NLS Support Guide on using ALTER DATABASE SET CHARACTERSET command to move from us7ascii to UTF8. If you are not on Oracle 8i and/or your characater set is not us7ascii, you have to rebuild database to move from your current character set to UTF8. But I suggest you read first if you need to have a database that supports all those languages. Two many options and you may make a wrong decision :-)

[vinit]

Thanx..my db is on oracle8i (8.1.5) on Sun. I just wanted the info before creating my database. We were just trying out the possibilities.
Would be grateful if you could provide some more info on the same.