Recompiling a standard IFS-native package (with no code changes at all) suddenly causes every call to it to fail with ORA-06502 ('character string buffer too small'), specifically pointing at a line using Database_SYS.Get_Last_Character into a VARCHAR2(1) variable — the package worked flawlessly before the recompile.

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Answer

Check the NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS setting of the database session/tool you used to recompile the package — tools like Toad, Oracle SQL Developer, or PL/SQL Developer sometimes have this parameter set to BYTE in their own session defaults, and compiling database objects under a BYTE-semantics session causes those objects to be compiled with byte-based (rather than character-based/CHAR) length semantics. This mismatch is a known cause of exactly this 'buffer too small' error appearing after a routine recompile with no actual code changes. Setting NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS to CHAR in your SQL client tool's session/connection preferences before recompiling resolves it — increasing the variable's declared size (as a workaround) treats the symptom rather than the actual BYTE-vs-CHAR semantics mismatch causing it.

Documentation-based answer. Confirm the product and release before applying it. This answer has not been verified in an IFS environment.

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