Re: UTF-8

2006/10/13, Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog(at)svana(dot)org>:
> On Thu, Oct 12, 2006 at 11:09:53PM +0200, Tomi NA wrote:
> > 2006/10/12, Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog(at)svana(dot)org>:
> > >On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 11:49:06AM +0300, Martins Mihailovs wrote:
> > >> There are some misunderstood. Im using Linux 2.6.16.4, postgresql 8.1.4,
> > >> (there are one of locale: lv_LV.utf8, for Latvian language). But if I
> > >> want do "lower", then with standard latin symbols all is ok, but with
> > >> others special symbols (like umlaut in Germany) there is problems, and
> > >> sorting is going not like alphabet but like latin alphabet and specials
> > >> symbols after. :(
> > >
> > >You don't say what your encoding is. If it not UTF-8, that's your
> > >problem...
> >
> > Doesn't lv_LV.utf8 mean he *did* say what his encoding is?
>
> Not really. It says the encoding the system *expects*. However, if he
> actually created his database with LATIN1 encoding, it would explain
> the problems he's having.

This is a reoccurring topic on the list: sure, it's possible to
misconfigure pg so that uppercase/lowercase/ilike/tsearch2/order don't
work with a single letter outside of the English alphabet, but the
problem Martins seems to be facing is one we've seen here before
(myself being one of those affected). There's no way Martins can set
up pg - UTF or no UTF - so that collation and case insensitivity-based
functions work in both Latvian an Russian.
Because I have the same problem with Croatian, German and Italian,
I've limited my use of pg to projects targeted at LAN or intranet
environments: others are probably switching to mysql or firebird
altogether as it's easier to work with just one RDBMS than two.

t.n.a.