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