Question: Which view should I use to determine the character set and national character set my server is using?
sys@8i> select * from nls_database_parameters;
PARAMETER VALUE
------------------------------ ------------------------------
NLS_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_TERRITORY AMERICA
NLS_CURRENCY $
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY AMERICA
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS .,
NLS_CHARACTERSET US7ASCII
NLS_CALENDAR GREGORIAN
NLS_DATE_FORMAT DD-MON-YY
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_SORT BINARY
NLS_TIME_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT DD-MON-YY HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZH:TZM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT DD-MON-YY HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZH:T
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY $
NLS_COMP
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET US7ASCII
NLS_RDBMS_VERSION 8.1.5.0.0
18 rows selected.
The database character set defines the character set for the entire database
Any data stored in columns with a datatype of CHAR, VARCHAR2, CLOB and LONG can use any characters in the database character set .
The national character set defines the character set for the the national language setting for a particular user
Any data stored in columns with a datatype of CHAR, VARCHAR2, or NCLOB uses the national character set .