Database Software

Hi there, folks.

The title is pretty explanatory, I'm having a hard time trying to create a container with Oracle 12.2.01 using a different charset.

The official oracle image has AL32UTF8 as charset, but I need it to be WE8MSWIN1252.  After some researche I found a variable called ORACLE_CHARACTERSET so I gave it a try:

docker run -it --name oradocker -p 1521:1521 -e ORACLE_CHARACTERSET=WE8MSWIN1252 store/oracle/database-enterprise:12.2.0.1

But it didn't work, the container was created with no errors but the database itself still had AL32UTF8 as charset.  The said parameter was simply ignored.  Later I realized that this option was for a specific (non-official) source image from github.

A little more research and found the real charset variable is called NLS_LANG.  So I tried it too:

docker run -it --name oradocker -p 1521:1521 --env NLS_LANG=WE8MSWIN1252 store/oracle/database-enterprise:12.2.0.1

And things went terrible.  The container gave me several weird errors when installing/configuring the database, like:

Enter password for SYS:

create pdb : ORCLPDB1

Error 19 initializing SQL*Plus

Invalid NLS character set for this OS environment

Reset Database parameters

Error 19 initializing SQL*Plus

Invalid NLS character set for this OS environment

@lz@@KKKTNSLSNR for Linux: Version 12.2.0.1.0 - Production

@@@@l

@@@@l

@z@l@z@l

@@l@@@````````````````````````@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@l@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@l@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@l@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@l@@l@K@l@K@l@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@l@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@l@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@l@@@@@l@@@@@@@@@@@l@@KKK  l

  l

@@@@@@@

(Actual output from terminal)

I thought things were improving since the install now tried to use the parameter.  I just had to figure out the correct one, and I eventually did: the NLS_LANG parameter need the full spec with the language and the country.  So I tried again:

docker run -it --name oradocker -p 1521:1521 --env NLS_LANG=ENGLISH_CANADA.WE8MSWIN1252 store/oracle/database-enterprise:12.2.0.1

Not a single error creating the container, the database was correctly installed and configured, absolutely no errors nor warnings.  So I logged on the database to check the charset and voilà:

SQL> select userenv('LANGUAGE') from dual;

USERENV('LANGUAGE')

----------------------------------------------------

AMERICAN_AMERICA.AL32UTF8

The damn thing did not used the value on the parameter.  Why???  If I put anything else it fails, but an acceptable value seems to be skipped for no reason.

Does anybody ever tried this?  Although Docker is not that new I my researches returned nothing about this specific problem.

Any insights or tips?

Thanks in advance.