php pear DB, UTF8 settngs question

Hi,

I recently moved a web site that uses the PEAR DB module to communicate
w/postgresql from an RH9 server to an RHEL3 server. Before doing this, I
  had changed the /etc/sysconfig/i18n setting to en_US from en_US.UTF8,
which I did because it was suggested in some spamassassin installation
mail discussions that spamassassin and other perl scripts might not work
without making this change.

I then created a new postgresql database, which automatically set en_US
for LC_MESSAGES, LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, LC_TIME in the postgresql.conf
file. I found that my DB::connect() failed with a "database not found"
error message. When I changed the settings for LC_x variables back to
en_US.UTF-8 in the postgresql.conf file, my connection succeeded and the
appication seemed to work as expected.

I found I could communicate with the database  from a local or remote
server via psql, regardless of the LC_x variable settings.

I was hoping to be pointed to some documentation or any basic insights
into how these settings affect PHP connections to postgresql.

Am I making a mistake to have changed the /etc/sysconfig/i18n setting
before initializing and loading the postgresql database? Is it OK to
have changed the settings for the LC_x variables in postgresql.conf
after the fact?

Thanks for any help understanding this, Bill Wraith