Re: v3 protocol & string encoding

Oliver Jowett <oliver@opencloud.com> writes:
> The encoding of user & database names was my main concern. If they can 
> only be 7-bit ASCII in practice, that's easy..

Well, you can *try* using other encodings, but there are enough known
problems that I don't think it will work pleasantly unless client and
server encodings are the same all the time.

>>> 2) At what point in the stream does a client_encoding change take effect 
>>> -- immediately after the corresponding ParameterStatus message, or at 
>>> some other point?
>> 
>> ParameterStatus is sent when the change is made.

> Are the strings in the ParameterStatus encoded with the old or new 
> client_encoding?

Okay, make that "sent just after the change is made".  So it looks like
you should receive a string in the new encoding.  I can't offhand think
of a way to test this though --- are any of the reported settings
interesting from an encoding standpoint?

> Is it safe to assume that 7-bit ASCII 
> is always encoded unchanged regardless of the encoding in use?

Hm.  This is true for all the "backend-safe" encodings but I believe
not for all the supported client encodings.  Tatsuo might have more of
a clue than me about likely failure cases.
        regards, tom lane