ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TERRITORY = "United Kingdom" does not work - oracle

Question

I'm new to sqlplus.
I tried
'ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TERRITORY = "United Kingdom"
to change the currency to £. It worked once but after I changed it to
'ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TERRITORY = "Japan"
and changed it back to
'ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TERRITORY = "United Kingdom"
SELECT TO_CHAR(1111, 'L9999') FROM DUAL
it outputs #1111.
How can I fix this? Looking at v$nls_parameters, this only happens only when I set it to the UK.

Answer 1

[TL;DR]
One solution may be to upgrade to Oracle 19.
Another may be, if you are using windows command prompt, to run:
set NLS_LANG=ENGLISH_UNITED KINGDOM.we8pc850
before running SQL/Plus to set the code-page for displaying characters.
This works on Oracle's LiveSQL which is running Oracle 19c.
ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TERRITORY = "UNITED KINGDOM";
SELECT TO_CHAR(1111, 'FML9999') FROM DUAL;
Which outputs:
TO_CHAR(1111,'FML9999')
-----------------------
£1111
and:
select *
from nls_database_parameters
ORDER BY parameter
outputs:
PARAMETER VALUE
----------------------- ----------------------------
NLS_CALENDAR GREGORIAN
NLS_CHARACTERSET AL32UTF8
NLS_COMP BINARY
NLS_CURRENCY $
NLS_DATE_FORMAT DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY $
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY AMERICA
NLS_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET AL16UTF16
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP FALSE
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS .,
NLS_RDBMS_VERSION 19.0.0.0.0
NLS_SORT BINARY
NLS_TERRITORY AMERICA
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_TIME_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
and
select *
from nls_session_parameters
ORDER BY parameter
outputs:
PARAMETER VALUE
----------------------- ----------------------------
NLS_CALENDAR GREGORIAN
NLS_COMP BINARY
NLS_CURRENCY £
NLS_DATE_FORMAT DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY €
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY UNITED KINGDOM
NLS_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP FALSE
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS .,
NLS_SORT BINARY
NLS_TERRITORY UNITED KINGDOM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH24.MI.SSXFF
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH24.MI.SSXFF TZR
NLS_TIME_FORMAT HH24.MI.SSXFF
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT HH24.MI.SSXFF TZR
LiveSQL here
However, running the same script in db<>fiddle, which is running Oracle 18c, outputs:
| TO_CHAR(1111,'FML9999') |
| :---------------------- |
| #1111 |
and the database NLS parameters are:
PARAMETER | VALUE
:---------------------- | :---------------------------
NLS_CALENDAR | GREGORIAN
NLS_CHARACTERSET | AL32UTF8
NLS_COMP | BINARY
NLS_CURRENCY | $
NLS_DATE_FORMAT | DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE | AMERICAN
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY | $
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY | AMERICA
NLS_LANGUAGE | AMERICAN
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS | BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET | AL16UTF16
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP | FALSE
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS | .,
NLS_RDBMS_VERSION | 18.0.0.0.0
NLS_SORT | BINARY
NLS_TERRITORY | AMERICA
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT | DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT | DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_TIME_FORMAT | HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT | HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
and the session parameters are:
PARAMETER | VALUE
:---------------------- | :--------------------------
NLS_CALENDAR | GREGORIAN
NLS_COMP | BINARY
NLS_CURRENCY | #
NLS_DATE_FORMAT | DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE | ENGLISH
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY | ?
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY | UNITED KINGDOM
NLS_LANGUAGE | ENGLISH
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS | BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP | FALSE
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS | .,
NLS_SORT | BINARY
NLS_TERRITORY | UNITED KINGDOM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT | DD-MON-RR HH24.MI.SSXFF
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT | DD-MON-RR HH24.MI.SSXFF TZR
NLS_TIME_FORMAT | HH24.MI.SSXFF
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT | HH24.MI.SSXFF TZR
Trying various ways to get a £ symbol as the NLS_CURRENCY value:
DECLARE
TYPE StringMap IS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(10) INDEX BY VARCHAR2(20);
a_curr StringMap;
v_idx VARCHAR2(20);
v_stmt VARCHAR2(200);
BEGIN
a_curr('Pound sign') := '£';
a_curr('UNISTR(''\00A3'')') := UNISTR( '\00A3' );
a_curr('CHR(163)') := CHR(163);
v_idx := a_curr.FIRST;
LOOP
EXIT WHEN v_idx IS NULL;
DECLARE
v_stmt VARCHAR2(200) := 'ALTER SESSION SET NLS_CURRENCY = '''|| a_curr(v_idx) ||'''';
BEGIN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE( v_idx );
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE( ' ' || v_stmt );
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE v_stmt;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE( ' ' || TO_CHAR(1111, 'FML9999' ) );
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE( 'Error: ' || SQLERRM );
END;
v_idx := a_curr.NEXT(v_idx);
END LOOP;
END;
/
Outputs:
CHR(163)
ALTER SESSION SET NLS_CURRENCY = ''
Error: ORA-12705: Cannot access NLS data files or invalid environment specified
Pound sign
ALTER SESSION SET NLS_CURRENCY = '??'
??1111
UNISTR('\00A3')
ALTER SESSION SET NLS_CURRENCY = '#'
#1111
And none of them have set NLS_CURRENCY to £. In fact, it seems to be very difficult (impossible?) to get a £ character to output in an Oracle db<>fiddle.
db<>fiddle here
However, on a local install of Oracle 11gR2, if I run:
ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TERRITORY = "UNITED KINGDOM";
ALTER SESSION SET NLS_CURRENCY = '£';
SELECT TO_CHAR(1111, 'FML9999') FROM DUAL;
Then the output is:
TO_CHAR(1111,'F
---------------
£1111
Looking at this:
The character sets are the same and there are no obvious difference in settings (and changing NLS_LANGUAGE to AMERICAN makes no difference) but its possible there is a setting that I've missed;
It may be that the difference is in the front-end from LiveSQL to db<>fiddle (and SQL/PLUS);
It may be in the codepage used by the operating system to display characters - you can see more details for Windows here;
Or it may be an issue with the Oracle version and the handling of £ is "fixed" in Oracle 19 (although since it works for me on Oracle 11g I'm not sure this is the case).