Re: client_encoding directive is ignored in

Tatsuo Ishii <t-ishii@sra.co.jp> writes:
> Why? No matter how the backend's behavior regarding client_encoding
> changes, libpq won't be affected by it since 7.2 and 7.3 libpq does
> not use client_encoding anyway.

Doesn't client_encoding determine what encoding the backend sends to
the client?

It's probable that libpq itself is not affected by the selected
client_encoding, since it only passes data through.  But I think that
applications are quite likely to be broken if we alter the backend's
behavior in a way that changes the default client encoding.  That
strikes me as a change that should be made at a major release, not
a minor one --- people don't expect to get hit by compatibility
problems when they do a minor upgrade.

But this argument is mostly irrelevant if the proposed change will not
affect behavior in a default installation.  I guess I'm not entirely
clear on exactly which cases it will affect.  What will your proposed
change do in each possible combination (database encoding is SQL_ASCII
or not, client_encoding is defined in postgresql.conf or not,
PGCLIENTENCODING is set in postmaster's environment or not, etc)?
        regards, tom lane