Oracle Database 10g Developer 6i Settings For Arabic Urdu Support Work

Bridging the Legacy Gap: Configuring Oracle 10g & Developer 6i for Arabic/Urdu Support

If you are reading this, you are likely wrestling with a specific, somewhat legacy challenge: getting a system running Oracle Database 10g on the backend and Oracle Developer 6i (Forms & Reports) on the frontend to play nice with Arabic or Urdu data.

It is a common scenario in many established enterprises. Developer 6i is a robust tool that refuses to die, but it was built in an era where Unicode support wasn't the standard default. Getting your forms to display Right-to-Left (RTL) text correctly—and ensuring that data stored in the database is retrievable without turning into "gibberish"—requires a specific set of configurations.

In this guide, we will walk through the essential settings to achieve seamless bi-directional (Bi-Di) support. Bridging the Legacy Gap: Configuring Oracle 10g &

Check Current Database Character Set:

SELECT value FROM nls_database_parameters WHERE parameter = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET';

4.3 Display Issues (Garbled Text – “????” or boxes)

If you see ???? or squares:

• Check NLS_LANG client–server mismatch.
• Verify font supports Arabic glyphs.
• Ensure the column’s character set is not US7ASCII or WE8ISO8859P1.

Diagnostic query:

SELECT DUMP(column_name, 1016) FROM table_name;

Check if byte values correspond to Arabic code points (0xC7, 0xC8 etc. in AR8MSWIN1256).

4.3 Canvas and Window Layout

1. Direction: In the property palette of the Canvas, check for a Direction property. If available, set it to Right to Left.
2. Layout Adjustments: Manually adjust the layout. Labels for Right-to-Left items should be placed to the right of the text box, consistent with Arabic UI standards.

Step 2: Registry Configuration (Critical)

Navigate to (for Developer 6i on Windows 10/7/XP): Check NLS_LANG client–server mismatch

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\KEY_Dev6i_Home

Add or modify these string values:

| Value Name | Value Data | |------------|-------------| | NLS_LANG | ARABIC_BAHRAIN.AL32UTF8 (or ARABIC_UAE.AL32UTF8) | | FORMS60_CHARACTER_SET | AL32UTF8 | | FORMS60_FONT | Arial Unicode MS | | FORMS60_FONT_SIZE | 10 | Crucial : Without FORMS60_CHARACTER_SET=AL32UTF8

Crucial: Without FORMS60_CHARACTER_SET=AL32UTF8, Forms 6i will strip the high-order byte from Urdu characters, turning ے into gibberish.