I can't remember what the outcome was, but what about UNICODE?

One of the partially implemented bits of JDBC is the handling of UNICODE
strings (which Java uses all the time).

--
Peter T Mount, peter@maidstone.gov.uk, peter@retep.org.uk
JDBC FAQ: http://www.retep.org.uk/postgres
Please note that this is from my works email. If you reply, please cc my
home address.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pgsql-hackers@hub.org [mailto:owner-pgsql-hackers@hub.org]On
Behalf Of Thomas G. Lockhart
Sent: Monday, May 18, 1998 4:43 PM
To: phd2@earthling.net
Cc: Mattias Kregert; Postgres Hackers List; oleg@sai.msu.su; Tatsuo
Ishii
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Re: [PATCHES] char/varchar locale support


> > Shouldn't this be done only for NATIONAL CHAR?
>    It is what USE_LOCALE is intended for, isn't it?

SQL92 defines NATIONAL CHAR/VARCHAR as the data type to support implicit
local character sets. The usual CHAR/VARCHAR would use the default
SQL_TEXT character set. I suppose we could extend it to include NATIONAL
TEXT also...

Additionally, SQL92 allows one to specify an explicit character set and
an explicit collating sequence. The standard is not explicit on how one
actually makes these known to the database, but Postgres should be well
suited to accomplishing this.

Anyway, I'm not certain how common and wide-spread the NATIONAL CHAR
usage is. Would users with installations having non-English data find
using NCHAR/NATIONAL CHAR/NATIONAL CHARACTER an inconvenience? Or would
most non-English installations find this better and more solid??

At the moment we have support for Russian and Japanese character sets,
and these would need the maintainers to agree to changes.

btw, if we do implement NATIONAL CHARACTER I would like to do so by
having it fit in with the full SQL92 character sets and collating
sequences capabilities. Then one could specify what NATIONAL CHAR means
for an installation or perhaps at run time without having to
recompile...

                          - Tom


Mon, 18 May 1998 16:50:39 +0100
Peter Mount <peter@maidstone.gov.uk>
RE: [HACKERS] Re: [PATCHES] char/varchar locale support
> I can't remember what the outcome was, but what about UNICODE?
> One of the partially implemented bits of JDBC is the handling of 
> UNICODE strings (which Java uses all the time).

I can't remember the outcome either, but when this was discussed on the
list earlier I had posted a url reference to a character coding
discussion from the DocBook SGML folks. I vaguely recall that (for their
typesetting purposes) UNICODE didn't solve all problems.

I also vaguely recall that the most common extended-byte encoding
sequence is that used in Japan (EUC-jp?).

Are we ready to gear up for another discussion on this topic? If so,
someone should go through the archives and summarize the previous
discussions so we don't re-invent the wheel...

                     - Tom

Mon, 18 May 1998 16:29:13 +0000
"Thomas G. Lockhart" <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
Re: [HACKERS] Re: [PATCHES] char/varchar locale support

speaking of archives, the digest archives are a little hard to use..
a standard mailing list archive would be grand -- I can probably point
to some software if need be.  are the postgres lists archived in the
standard majordomo way? (as in, berkeley mail format?)

On Mon, 18 May 1998, at 16:29:13, Thomas G. Lockhart wrote:

> > I can't remember what the outcome was, but what about UNICODE?
> > One of the partially implemented bits of JDBC is the handling of 
> > UNICODE strings (which Java uses all the time).
> 
> I can't remember the outcome either, but when this was discussed on the
> list earlier I had posted a url reference to a character coding
> discussion from the DocBook SGML folks. I vaguely recall that (for their
> typesetting purposes) UNICODE didn't solve all problems.
> 
> I also vaguely recall that the most common extended-byte encoding
> sequence is that used in Japan (EUC-jp?).
> 
> Are we ready to gear up for another discussion on this topic? If so,
> someone should go through the archives and summarize the previous
> discussions so we don't re-invent the wheel...
> 
>                      - Tom

Mon, 18 May 1998 09:31:08 -0700 (PDT)
Brett McCormick <brett@work.chicken.org>
Re: [HACKERS] Re: [PATCHES] char/varchar locale support