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Oracle Database Environment Variables and Their Functions

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Oracle Database Environment Variables

Below are some of the most common environment variables used with Oracle Database and their descriptions:

  • NLS_LANG: Specifies the language, territory, and character set of the client environment. The client character set specified by NLS_LANG must match the character set of the terminal or terminal emulator.
  • ORA_NLS10: Specifies the directory where the language, territory, character set, and linguistic definition files are stored.
  • ORA_TZFILE: Specifies the full path and file name of the time zone file. The Oracle Database Server always uses the large time zone file ($ORACLE_HOME/oracore/zoneinfo/timezlrg_number.dat).
  • ORACLE_BASE: Specifies the base of the Oracle directory structure for Optimal Flexible Architecture compliant installations.
  • ORACLE_HOME: Specifies the directory containing the Oracle software.
  • ORACLE_PATH: Specifies the search path for files used by Oracle applications such as SQL*Plus. If the full path to the file is not specified, or if the file is not in the current directory, then the Oracle application uses ORACLE_PATH to locate the file.
  • ORACLE_SID: Specifies the Oracle system identifier.
  • ORACLE_TRACE: Enables the tracing of shell scripts during an installation.
  • ORAENV_ASK: Controls whether the oraenv or coraenv script prompts or does not prompt for the value of the ORACLE_SID environment variable.
  • SQLPATH: Specifies the directory or list of directories that SQL*Plus searches for a login.sql file.
  • TNS_ADMIN: Specifies the directory containing the Oracle Net Services configuration files.
  • TWO_TASK: Specifies the default connect identifier to use in the connect string. If this environment variable is set, then do not specify the connect identifier in the connect string.
  • NLS_OS_CHARSET: Specifies the Oracle character set name corresponding to the UNIX locale character set in which the file names and user names are encoded by the operating system.

UNIX Environment Variables

Below are some of the UNIX environment variables used with Oracle Database:

  • HOME: The home directory of the user.
  • LD_LIBRARY_PATH: Environment variable to specify the path used to search for libraries on UNIX and Linux. The environment variable may have a different name on some operating systems, such as LIBPATH on AIX, and SHLIB_PATH on HP-UX.
  • PATH: Used by the shell to locate executable programs; must include the $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory.
  • TEMP, TMP, and TMPDIR: Specifies the default directories for temporary files; if set, tools that create temporary files create them in one of these directories.

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