[Pkg-postgresql-public] Re: Changing default encoding to unicode?

[Peter Eisentraut]

Martin Pitt wrote:
> If PostgreSQL is installed with the default debconf answers, it is
> installed with locale and encoding 'C'. However, I feel that new
> databases should default to Unicode, as it becomes more and more
> widespread and the default.

The database encoding has to be set to match the locale (or vice versa).  
For example:

locale de_DE       --> encoding LATIN1
locale de_DE@euro  --> encoding LATIN9
locale de_DE.utf8  --> encoding UNICODE

initdb in PostgreSQL 8.0 will automatically pick the encoding to match 
the locale and complain if you specify a mismatching combination.  This 
is the only sane way to do it, given the current character type 
implementation in PostgreSQL.

I don't know if you're still thinking about 7.4.*.  If so, it may be 
worth backporting that logic.

In any case, I agree that the locale should default to the system's 
standard locale.  C is useless.