NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS parameter...

Question

Hi ,
I want to insert multilingual characters in an Oracle XE 10g Db. To do that i connected as sys and issued the command
insert into dept(deptno , dname)
   values(90,'ΛΟΓΙΣΤΗΡΙΟ')
ORA-12899: value too large for column "SCOTT"."DEPT"."DNAME" (actual: 20, maximum: 14)
SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS='CHAR' SCOPE=BOTH;
System altered
SQL>
SQL> insert into dept(deptno , dname)
  2     values(90,'ΛΟΓΙΣΤΗΡΙΟ')
  3  /
insert into dept(deptno , dname)
   values(90,'ΛΟΓΙΣΤΗΡΙΟ')
ORA-12899: value too large for column "SCOTT"."DEPT"."DNAME" (actual: 20, maximum: 14)
SQL> SHOW PARAMETER NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS;
NAME                                 TYPE        VALUE
nls_length_semantics                 string      CHARWhy does this problem persist...?????
Thanks...
Sim

Answer 1

Why does this problem persist...?????Because your tables are already created with BYTE semantics i.e. your length of column is 14 bytes but your text (logistics? ;)) you'd like to insert is 10 symbols but 20 bytes, so you cannot do that. As previous poster suggested modify column to 14 char. And your alter system will take care of all your next DDLs but it is not modifying already existing tables and BTW compiled programm units as well.
Gints Plivna
http://www.gplivna.eu