How to efficiently convert text to number in Oracle PL/SQL with non-default NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS?

Question

I\'m trying to find an efficient, generic way to convert from string to a number in PL/SQL, where the local setting for NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS settings is inpredictable -- a

Answer 1

If you are doing a lot of work per session, an option may be to use ALTER SESSION SET NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS = '.,' at the beginning of your task.

Of course, if lots of other code is executed in the same session, you may get funky results :-) However we are able to use this method in our data load procedures, since we have dedicated programs with their own connection pools for loading the data.