D.32 HS_LANGUAGE

HS_LANGUAGE initialization parameter for Oracle Database Gateway for Sybase.

Property	Description
Default value	System-specific
Range of values	Any valid language name (up to 255 characters)

Provides Heterogeneous Services with character set, language, and territory information of the non-Oracle data source. The value must use the following format:

language[_territory.character_set]

Note:

The globalization support initialization parameters affect error messages, the data for the SQL Service, and parameters in distributed external procedures.

• Character Sets
  HS_LANGUAGE initialization parameter character sets.
• Language
  HS_LANGUAGE initialization parameter language component.
• Territory
  HS_LANGUAGE initialization parameter territory clause.

D.32.1 Character Sets

HS_LANGUAGE initialization parameter character sets.

Ideally, the character sets of the Oracle database and the non-Oracle data source are the same. In almost all cases, HS_LANGUAGE should be set exactly the same as Oracle database character set for optimal character set mapping and performance. If they are not the same, Heterogeneous Services attempts to translate the character set of the non-Oracle data source to the Oracle database character set, and back again. The translation can degrade performance. In some cases, Heterogeneous Services cannot translate a character from one character set to another.

Note:

The specified character set must be a superset of the operating system character set on the platform where the agent is installed.

As more Oracle databases and non-Oracle databases use Unicode as database character sets, it is preferable to also run the gateway in Unicode character set. To do so, you must set HS_LANGUAGE=AL32UTF8. However, when the gateway runs on Windows, the Microsoft ODBC Driver Manager interface can exchange data only in the double-byte character set, UCS2. This results in extra ratio expansion of described buffer and column sizes. Refer to HS_FDS_REMOTE_DB_CHARSET for instruction on how to adjust to correct sizes.

D.32.2 Language

HS_LANGUAGE initialization parameter language component.

The language component of the HS_LANGUAGE initialization parameter determines:

• Day and month names of dates
• AD, BC, PM, and AM symbols for date and time
• Default sorting mechanism

Note that Oracle does not determine the language for error messages for the generic Heterogeneous Services messages (ORA-25000 through ORA-28000). These are controlled by the session settings in the Oracle database.

D.32.3 Territory

HS_LANGUAGE initialization parameter territory clause.

The territory clause specifies the conventions for day and week numbering, default date format, decimal character and group separator, and ISO and local currency symbols. Note that the level of globalization support between the Oracle database and the non-Oracle data source depends on how the gateway is implemented.