Sandra, just a guess, but may be the java program is unable to locate the oracle jdbc charset support library. the solution is to put the correct jar file in the classpath. the name of the jar depends by the oracle jdbc version, you can download them here http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/java/sqlj_jdbc/index.html for 10g driver (that according to otn site works with 9.2. db) you must download (http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/java/sqlj_jdbc/htdocs/jdbc_10201.html) two files ojdbc14.jar and orai18n.jar. the last one provides NLS support. I suggest always to use the ojdbc and orai18n of same version. Once you get the file you must install them in the classpath of the jasva program. If you can work together with a java developer installing the two jar would be easy. hth, Giovanni -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Another free oracle resource profiler http://sourceforge.net/projects/oraresprof/ Now version 0.9 -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l