Storing double-byte strings in text fields.

Hello,

I am putting together a web site to display a collection of Chinese
woodblock prints. I want to be able to store double byte values (that is
to say Big5, Unicode etc encoded) in a text field for things such as the
artist's name and the title of the print. I have the following questions:

Is this possible using a plain vanilla version of Postgres, ie without the
multi-lingual support enabled? As I understand it multi-lingual support
allows me to store table and field names etc in non-ASCII, but doesn't
really affect what goes into the fields.

Are programs such as pgdump and the COPY method 8bit clean or will they
mess up the text? I have done some quick trials and it all seems OK but I
want to be sure before commiting.

If the above is not the case will the multi-lingual support fix my
problems? I tried it out but had problems with the backend crashing on
certain queries. I'd also rather not use it as it will be easier to port
my system to other servers if it just needs a plain vanilla install.

I am currently using Postgresql 7.0.3 on RedHat 6.2 (x86) and also on
YellowDog 1.2 (PPC). The web server is Apache 1.3.12 with PHP 4.0.x.

Thanks,

Edmund.

-- *********************************************************** *** Edmund von der Burg *** edmund(at)ecclestoad(dot)co(dot)uk *** ***********************************************************