Re: [ADMIN] what's the efficient/safest way to convert database character set ?

Hi John,

We stored ISO-8859-1, do we still need to use iconv to convert the file?

Thanks,
Suya

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org [mailto:pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of John R Pierce
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2013 5:12 PM
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] [ADMIN] what's the efficient/safest way to convert database character set ?

On 10/17/2013 10:51 PM, Huang, Suya wrote:
> Question: How can I pull out the real character set information from the database? does it rely on the understanding of business knowledge?

what did you store in it? because its declared SQL_ASCII, postgres
doesn't know, its all just bytes. you could have stored standard 7 bit
USASCII, or you could have stored ISO-8859-1 (-2, -3,...), or you could have stored one of the myriad non-UTF Asian multibyte character
codes. postgres doesn't know or care what you put in there, and it
doesn't check to ensure its valid.

IF all your data is in a consistent encoding, and you specify that encoding on the pg_dump command, then the psql command should be able to restore it as-is to the new UTF8 database via the magic of
client_encoding. if the data is not consistent, you'll have a much
harder time.

--
john r pierce 37N 122W
somewhere on the middle of the left coast

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