Re: Fixed length data types issue

Martijn van Oosterhout wrote:
> I think that if SQL COLLATE gets in we'll get this almost for free.
> Collation and charset are both properties of strings. Once you've got a
> mechanism to know the collation of a string, you just attach the
> charset to the same place. The only difference is that changing charsets
> requires recoding, wheres changing collation does not.

Not quite. Collation is a property of the operation that you're doing. 
For example, if you're doing a sort, you might do it in different 
collation depending on the user that's doing it, or it might even be 
chosen by the user case-by-case. Of course, usually you have a default 
set per-database, per-table or per-column, but it's not a property of 
the actual value of a field. I think that the phrase "collation of a 
string" doesn't make sense.

-- 
Heikki Linnakangas
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com