Navigate to the Developer 6i home directory path. This is typically found at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE (On 32-bit Windows)
Enabling Arabic and Urdu Support in Oracle 10g & Developer 6i
Help troubleshoot if you are seeing instead of connected ones.
Open the tab within the Regional Settings window.
Oracle Developer 6i requires specific registry configurations on the client machine to correctly translate and display Arabic/Urdu characters. A. Windows Registry Settings ( NLS_LANG ) Open regedit . Navigate to the Developer 6i home directory path
To configure Oracle Developer 6i for Arabic and Urdu support, you need to set the character set and font settings.
On Windows, you can set this permanently through System Properties > Environment Variables.
ALTER DATABASE SET NATIONAL CHARACTER SET AL16UTF16;
For Arabic and Urdu support, the character set must support bidirectional (BiDi) text and the Arabic script characters required by both languages. To configure Oracle Developer 6i for Arabic and
SELECT value FROM nls_database_parameters WHERE parameter = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET';
To check your existing database character set, run the following SQL command as an administrator:
Button labels in Forms 6i have known font handling limitations. While canvas text can be controlled, button labels may require special handling. Using UIFONT.ALI to map button fonts to Arabic-capable fonts can resolve this issue.
Open Form 6i, enter data, and ensure it displays correctly after saving and re-querying. Troubleshooting Common Issues Potential Cause Garbled Characters (????) Incorrect NLS_LANG Set NLS_LANG to ARABIC_EGYPT.AR8MSWIN1256 in registry. ORA-12714 Error Invalid character set Ensure ALTER DATABASE syntax is correct. Arabic text appears as boxes Font issue Change form items to "Simplified Arabic" or "Arial". Oracle Database 10g Character Set Configuration
Ensure the font used (e.g., Arial, Tahoma, or Courier New) is a TrueType font that supports the Arabic script. Reports Builder Settings
Oracle Developer 6i (Forms & Reports) is legacy software originally designed for single-byte character sets. To correctly handle bi-directional (Bi-Di) languages like Arabic and Urdu—which require multi-byte character storage and specific rendering rules—strict environment configuration is required.
To configure the national character set, follow these steps:
This guide details the end-to-end environment setup required across the database, server, client registry, and developer tools. 1. Oracle Database 10g Character Set Configuration