On Monday 14 September 2009 1:40:18 pm Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> Am 2009-09-13 um 22:07 schrieb John:
> >>> I've a lot of experience with MySQL and a bit with SQLite.
> >>>
> >>> After all the praise for PostgreSQL on this list I tried to use it
> >>> when I recently set up a new webserver.
> >>>
> >>> After searching the docs and the Internets for a while I had to
> >>> conclude that PostgreSQL doesn't allow to use different text
> >>> encodings
> >>> (collations) for different tables - even worse, the encoding is
> >>> hard-
> >>> compiled, and UTF-8 is only possible with "C" locale.
> >>> That's totally out of the question and a horribly outdated approach!
> >>> So I went back to MySQL.
> >>>
> >>> Maybe I did or understood something wrong - but I can't say it would
> >>> be easy to set up a working PostSQL server. ("Only one 8-bit
> >>> encoding"
> >>> *is* "not working".)
> >>>
> >>> Greetlings from Lake Constance!
> >>> Hraban
> >>> ---
> >>
> >> You are right about different encodings for different tables. As of
> >> 8.3 you
> >> can have different encodings for databases within a cluster but
> >> that is far
> >> as it extends at the moment. Your comments about UTF-8 are wrong
> >> though.
> >> See the link for a better explanation:
> >> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/multibyte.html
> >
> > I missed that he was talking about tables and not databases.
>
> It would be enough if I could just use UTF-8 for everything.
> But I didn't manage to set that up - didn't try to compile PostgreSQL
> on my own, though.
> (My webserver is a vServer running Ubuntu Hardy. And I use a German
> locale.)
>
> What about this quote from the linked page (PostgreSQL version 8.4):
> """
> An important restriction, however, is that each database's character
> set must be compatible with the database's LC_CTYPE and LC_COLLATE
> locale settings. For C or POSIX locale, any character set is allowed,
> but for other locales there is only one character set that will work
> correctly. (On Windows, however, UTF-8 encoding can be used with any
> locale.)
> """
>
> And on the same page for version 8.3 (that's the version on Hardy) it
> reads:
> """
> An important restriction, however, is that each database character set
> must be compatible with the server's LC_CTYPE setting. When LC_CTYPE
> is C or POSIX, any character set is allowed, but for other settings of
> LC_CTYPE there is only one character set that will work correctly.
> Since the LC_CTYPE setting is frozen by initdb, the apparent
> flexibility to use different encodings in different databases of a
> cluster is more theoretical than real, except when you select C or
> POSIX locale (thus disabling any real locale awareness). It is likely
> that these mechanisms will be revisited in future versions of
> PostgreSQL.
> """
>
> I understand that as "your server must run under C locale". Wrongly?
>
>
> Greetlings from Lake Constance!
> HrabanFor version 8.4 it is not a requirement that it run under C locale. See section 22.2.2. Setting the Character Set for some examples. The LC_CTYPE and LC_COLLATE can be set for each database. You are correct that for 8.3- the LC_CTYPE is frozen and restricts your flexibility when creating additional databases in the cluster. Though in 8.3 you can initdb with UTF8 and use a German locale by using the --locale option to initdb see: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/interactive/locale.html I am running 8.0,8.2,8.3 and 8.4 on Hardy, all compiled from source, so it is possible :) -- Adrian Klaver akla...@comcast.net _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: Dabo-users@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/dabo-users Searchable Archives: http://leafe.com/archives/search/dabo-users This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/200909141641.43278.akla...@comcast.net
