Preface

This manual describes Oracle globalization support for the database. It explains how to set up a globalization support environment, choose and migrate a character set, customize locale data, do linguistic sorting, program in a global environment, and program with Unicode.

This preface contains these topics:

• Intended Audience

• Documentation Accessibility

• Structure

• Related Documents

• Conventions

Intended Audience

Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide is intended for database administrators, system administrators, and database application developers who perform the following tasks:

• Set up a globalization support environment

• Choose, analyze, or migrate character sets

• Sort data linguistically

• Customize locale data

• Write programs in a global environment

• Use Unicode

To use this document, you need to be familiar with relational database concepts, basic Oracle server concepts, and the operating system environment under which you are running Oracle.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

Structure

This document contains:

Chapter 1, "Overview of Globalization Support"

This chapter contains an overview of globalization and Oracle's approach to globalization.

Chapter 2, "Choosing a Character Set"

This chapter describes how to choose a character set.

Chapter 3, "Setting Up a Globalization Support Environment"

This chapter contains sample scenarios for enabling globalization capabilities.

Chapter 4, "Datetime Datatypes and Time Zone Support"

This chapter describes Oracle's datetime and interval datatypes, datetime SQL functions, and time zone support.

Chapter 5, "Linguistic Sorting and String Searching"

This chapter describes linguistic sorting.

Chapter 6, "Supporting Multilingual Databases with Unicode"

This chapter describes Unicode considerations for databases.

Chapter 7, "Programming with Unicode"

This chapter describes how to program in a Unicode environment.

Chapter 8, "Oracle Globalization Development Kit"

This chapter describes the Globalization Development Kit.

Chapter 9, "SQL and PL/SQL Programming in a Global Environment"

This chapter describes globalization considerations for SQL programming.

Chapter 10, "OCI Programming in a Global Environment"

This chapter describes globalization considerations for OCI programming.

Chapter 11, "Character Set Migration"

This chapter describes character set conversion issues and character set migration.

Chapter 12, "Character Set Scanner Utilities"

This chapter describes how to use the Character Set Scanner utility to analyze character data.

Chapter 13, "Customizing Locale"

This chapter explains how to use the Oracle Locale Builder utility to customize locales. It also contains information about time zone files and customizing calendar data.

Appendix A, "Locale Data"

This appendix describes the languages, territories, character sets, and other locale data supported by the Oracle server.

Appendix B, "Unicode Character Code Assignments"

This appendix lists Unicode code point values.

Glossary

The glossary contains definitions of globalization support terms.

Related Documents

Many of the examples in this book use the sample schemas of the seed database, which is installed by default when you install Oracle. Refer to Oracle Database Sample Schemas for information on how these schemas were created and how you can use them yourself.

Printed documentation is available for sale in the Oracle Store at

http://oraclestore.oracle.com/

To download free release notes, installation documentation, white papers, or other collateral, please visit the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). You must register online before using OTN; registration is free and can be done at

http://otn.oracle.com/membership/

If you already have a username and password for OTN, then you can go directly to the documentation section of the OTN Web site at

http://otn.oracle.com/documentation/

Conventions

This section describes the conventions used in the text and code examples of this documentation set. It describes:

• Conventions in Text

• Conventions in Code Examples

• Conventions for Windows Operating Systems

Conventions in Text

We use various conventions in text to help you more quickly identify special terms. The following table describes those conventions and provides examples of their use.

Conventions in Code Examples

Code examples illustrate SQL, PL/SQL, SQL*Plus, or other command-line statements. They are displayed in a monospace (fixed-width) font and separated from normal text as shown in this example:

SELECT username FROM dba_users WHERE username = 'MIGRATE';

The following table describes typographic conventions used in code examples and provides examples of their use.

[ ]

DECIMAL (digits [ , precision ])

{ }

{ENABLE | DISABLE}

|

{ENABLE | DISABLE}
[COMPRESS | NOCOMPRESS]

...

CREATE TABLE ... AS subquery;

SELECT col1, col2, ... , coln FROM employees;

.
 .
 .

SQL> SELECT NAME FROM V$DATAFILE;
NAME
------------------------------------
/fsl/dbs/tbs_01.dbf
/fs1/dbs/tbs_02.dbf
.
.
.
/fsl/dbs/tbs_09.dbf
9 rows selected.

acctbal NUMBER(11,2);
acct    CONSTANT NUMBER(4) := 3;

Italics

CONNECT SYSTEM/system_password
DB_NAME = database_name

UPPERCASE

SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees;
SELECT * FROM USER_TABLES;
DROP TABLE hr.employees;

lowercase

SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees;
sqlplus hr/hr
CREATE USER mjones IDENTIFIED BY ty3MU9;

Conventions for Windows Operating Systems

The following table describes conventions for Windows operating systems and provides examples of their use.

c:\winnt"\"system32 is the same as C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32

C:\oracle\oradata>

C:\>exp scott/tiger TABLES=emp QUERY=\"WHERE job='SALESMAN' and sal<1600\"
C:\>imp SYSTEM/password FROMUSER=scott TABLES=(emp, dept)

HOME_NAME

C:\> net start OracleHOME_NAMETNSListener