Re: Encoding, Unicode, locales, etc.

Karsten Hilbert <Karsten(dot)Hilbert(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
> Could this paragraph be put into the docs and/or the FAQ,
> please ?

Section 21.2. Character Set Support already has something about it:

Important: Although you can specify any encoding you want for a
database, it is unwise to choose an encoding that is not what is
expected by the locale you have selected. The LC_COLLATE and
LC_CTYPE settings imply a particular encoding, and locale-dependent
operations (such as sorting) are likely to misinterpret data that
is in an incompatible encoding.

Since these locale settings are frozen by initdb, the apparent
flexibility to use different encodings in different databases of a
cluster is more theoretical than real. It is likely that these
mechanisms will be revisited in future versions of PostgreSQL.

One way to use multiple encodings safely is to set the locale to C
or POSIX during initdb, thus disabling any real locale awareness.

regards, tom lane