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Changing From US7ASCII or WE8ISO8859P1 or AR8ISO8859P6 to AR8MSWIN1256 in 8i, 9i, 10g and 11g. (Doc ID 260022.1)

Last updated on APRIL 24, 2019

Applies to:

Oracle Database - Standard Edition - Version 8.1.7.4 to 11.2.0.4 [Release 8.1.7 to 11.2]
Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition - Version 8.1.7.4 to 11.2.0.4 [Release 8.1.7 to 11.2]
Oracle Database Cloud Schema Service - Version N/A and later
Oracle Database Exadata Express Cloud Service - Version N/A and later
Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Machine - Version N/A and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.
***Checked for relevance on 20-Sep-2016***

Purpose

To provide a guide to
*or change the NLS_CHARACTERSET from US7ASCII , WE8ISO8859P1or AR8ISO8859P6 to AR8MSWIN1256
* or rescue Arabic data stored in a WE8IOS8859P1 or US7ASCII database

We strongly advice to follow this note also when using export/import from an US7ASCII, WE8ISO8859P1 or AR8ISO8859P6 to an AR8MSWIN1256 database.

The current NLS_CHARACTERSET is seen in NLS_DATABASE_PARAMETERS.

select value from NLS_DATABASE_PARAMETERS where parameter='NLS_CHARACTERSET';

This note is ONLY for 8i, 9i, 10g and 11g it cannot be used for Oracle RDBMS 12c
For other characterset conversions and Oracle 12c please see <Note 225912.1> Changing the Database Character Set ( NLS_CHARACTERSET )

Scope

Any DBA wanting to change the current NLS_CHARACTERSET from WE8ISO8859P1 or US7ASCII or AR8ISO8859P6 to AR8MSWIN1256

Details

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