## 21.2. Character Set Support

The character set support in PostgreSQL allows you to store text in a variety of character sets, including single-byte character sets such as the ISO 8859 series and multiple-byte character sets such as EUC (Extended Unix Code), UTF-8, and Mule internal code. All character sets can be used transparently throughout the server. (If you use extension functions from other sources, it depends on whether they wrote their code correctly.) The default character set is selected while initializing your PostgreSQL database cluster using `initdb`. It can be overridden when you create a database using `createdb` or by using the SQL command `CREATE DATABASE`. So you can have multiple databases each with a different character set.

### 21.2.1. Supported Character Sets

Table 21.1, “Server Character Sets” shows the character sets available for use in the server.

Table 21.1. Server Character Sets

Name | Description | Language | Bytes/Char | Aliases
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
`BIG5` | Big Five | Traditional Chinese | 1-2 | `WIN950`, `Windows950`
`EUC_CN` | Extended UNIX Code-CN | Simplified Chinese | 1-3 |
`EUC_JP` | Extended UNIX Code-JP | Japanese | 1-3 |
`EUC_KR` | Extended UNIX Code-KR | Korean | 1-3 |
`EUC_TW` | Extended UNIX Code-TW | Traditional Chinese, Taiwanese | 1-3 |
`GB18030` | National Standard | Chinese | 1-2 |
`GBK` | Extended National Standard | Simplified Chinese | 1-2 | `WIN936`, `Windows936`
`ISO_8859_5` | ISO 8859-5, ECMA 113 | Latin/Cyrillic | 1 |
`ISO_8859_6` | ISO 8859-6, ECMA 114 | Latin/Arabic | 1 |
`ISO_8859_7` | ISO 8859-7, ECMA 118 | Latin/Greek | 1 |
`ISO_8859_8` | ISO 8859-8, ECMA 121 | Latin/Hebrew | 1 |
`JOHAB` | JOHAB | Korean (Hangul) | 1-3 |
`KOI8` | KOI8-R(U) | Cyrillic | 1 | `KOI8R`
`LATIN1` | ISO 8859-1, ECMA 94 | Western European | 1 | `ISO88591`
`LATIN2` | ISO 8859-2, ECMA 94 | Central European | 1 | `ISO88592`
`LATIN3` | ISO 8859-3, ECMA 94 | South European | 1 | `ISO88593`
`LATIN4` | ISO 8859-4, ECMA 94 | North European | 1 | `ISO88594`
`LATIN5` | ISO 8859-9, ECMA 128 | Turkish | 1 | `ISO88599`
`LATIN6` | ISO 8859-10, ECMA 144 | Nordic | 1 | `ISO885910`
`LATIN7` | ISO 8859-13 | Baltic | 1 | `ISO885913`
`LATIN8` | ISO 8859-14 | Celtic | 1 | `ISO885914`
`LATIN9` | ISO 8859-15 | LATIN1 with Euro and accents | 1 | ISO885915
`LATIN10` | ISO 8859-16, ASRO SR 14111 | Romanian | 1 | `ISO885916`
`MULE_INTERNAL` | Mule internal code | Multilingual Emacs | 1-4 |
`SJIS` | Shift JIS | Japanese | 1-2 | `Mskanji`, `ShiftJIS`, `WIN932`, `Windows932`
`SQL_ASCII` | unspecified (see text) | any | 1 |
`UHC` | Unified Hangul Code | Korean | 1-2 | `WIN949`, `Windows949`
`UTF8` | Unicode, 8-bit | all | 1-4 | `Unicode`
`WIN866` | Windows CP866 | Cyrillic | 1 | `ALT`
`WIN874` | Windows CP874 | Thai | 1 |
`WIN1250` | Windows CP1250 | Central European | 1 |
`WIN1251` | Windows CP1251 | Cyrillic | 1 | `WIN`
`WIN1252` | Windows CP1252 | Western European | 1 |
`WIN1256` | Windows CP1256 | Arabic | 1 |
`WIN1258` | Windows CP1258 | Vietnamese | 1 | `ABC`, `TCVN`, `TCVN5712`, `VSCII`

Not all APIs support all the listed character sets. For example, the PostgreSQL JDBC driver does not support `MULE_INTERNAL`, `LATIN6`, `LATIN8`, and `LATIN10`.

The `SQL_ASCII` setting behaves considerably differently from the other settings. When the server character set is `SQL_ASCII`, the server interprets byte values 0-127 according to the ASCII standard, while byte values 128-255 are taken as uninterpreted characters. No encoding conversion will be done when the setting is `SQL_ASCII`. Thus, this setting is not so much a declaration that a specific encoding is in use, as a declaration of ignorance about the encoding. In most cases, if you are working with any non-ASCII data, it is unwise to use the `SQL_ASCII` setting, because PostgreSQL will be unable to help you by converting or validating non-ASCII characters.

### 21.2.2. Setting the Character Set

`initdb` defines the default character set for a PostgreSQL cluster. For example,

    initdb -E EUC_JP

sets the default character set (encoding) to `EUC_JP` (Extended Unix Code for Japanese). You can use `--encoding` instead of `-E` if you prefer to type longer option strings. If no `-E` or `--encoding` option is given, `initdb` attempts to determine the appropriate encoding to use based on the specified or default locale.

You can create a database with a different character set:

    createdb -E EUC_KR korean

This will create a database named `korean` that uses the character set `EUC_KR`. Another way to accomplish this is to use this SQL command:

    CREATE DATABASE korean WITH ENCODING 'EUC_KR';

The encoding for a database is stored in the system catalog `pg_database`. You can see that by using the `-l` option or the `\l` command of `psql`.

    $ psql -l
                List of databases
       Database    |  Owner  |   Encoding
    ---------------+---------+---------------
     euc_cn        | t-ishii | EUC_CN
     euc_jp        | t-ishii | EUC_JP
     euc_kr        | t-ishii | EUC_KR
     euc_tw        | t-ishii | EUC_TW
     mule_internal | t-ishii | MULE_INTERNAL
     postgres      | t-ishii | EUC_JP
     regression    | t-ishii | SQL_ASCII
     template1     | t-ishii | EUC_JP
     test          | t-ishii | EUC_JP
     utf8          | t-ishii | UTF8
    (9 rows)

### Important

Although you can specify any encoding you want for a database, it is unwise to choose an encoding that is not what is expected by the locale you have selected. The `LC_COLLATE` and `LC_CTYPE` settings imply a particular encoding, and locale-dependent operations (such as sorting) are likely to misinterpret data that is in an incompatible encoding.

Since these locale settings are frozen by `initdb`, the apparent flexibility to use different encodings in different databases of a cluster is more theoretical than real. It is likely that these mechanisms will be revisited in future versions of PostgreSQL.

One way to use multiple encodings safely is to set the locale to `C` or `POSIX` during `initdb`, thus disabling any real locale awareness.

### 21.2.3. Automatic Character Set Conversion Between Server and Client

PostgreSQL supports automatic character set conversion between server and client for certain character sets. The conversion information is stored in the `pg_conversion` system catalog. You can create a new conversion by using the SQL command `CREATE CONVERSION`. PostgreSQL comes with some predefined conversions. They are listed in Table 21.2, “Client/Server Character Set Conversions”.

Table 21.2. Client/Server Character Set Conversions

Server Character Set | Available Client Character Sets
--- | ---
`BIG5` | not supported as a server encoding
`EUC_CN` | EUC_CN, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`
`EUC_JP` | EUC_JP, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `SJIS`, `UTF8`
`EUC_KR` | EUC_KR, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`
`EUC_TW` | EUC_TW, `BIG5`, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`
`GB18030` | not supported as a server encoding
`GBK` | not supported as a server encoding
`ISO_8859_5` | ISO_8859_5, `KOI8`, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`, `WIN866`, `WIN1251`
`ISO_8859_6` | ISO_8859_6, `UTF8`
`ISO_8859_7` | ISO_8859_7, `UTF8`
`ISO_8859_8` | ISO_8859_8, `UTF8`
`JOHAB` | JOHAB, `UTF8`
`KOI8` | KOI8, `ISO_8859_5`, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`, `WIN866`, `WIN1251`
`LATIN1` | LATIN1, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`
`LATIN2` | LATIN2, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`, `WIN1250`
`LATIN3` | LATIN3, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`
`LATIN4` | LATIN4, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`
`LATIN5` | LATIN5, `UTF8`
`LATIN6` | LATIN6, `UTF8`
`LATIN7` | LATIN7, `UTF8`
`LATIN8` | LATIN8, `UTF8`
`LATIN9` | LATIN9, `UTF8`
`LATIN10` | LATIN10, `UTF8`
`MULE_INTERNAL` | MULE_INTERNAL, `BIG5`, `EUC_CN`, `EUC_JP`, `EUC_KR`, `EUC_TW`, `ISO_8859_5`, `KOI8`, `LATIN1` to `LATIN4`, `SJIS`, `WIN866`, `WIN1250`, `WIN1251`
`SJIS` | not supported as a server encoding
`SQL_ASCII` | any (no conversion will be performed)
`UHC` | not supported as a server encoding
`UTF8` | all supported encodings
`WIN866` | WIN866, `ISO_8859_5`, `KOI8`, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`, `WIN1251`
`WIN874` | WIN874, `UTF8`
`WIN1250` | WIN1250, `LATIN2`, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`
`WIN1251` | WIN1251, `ISO_8859_5`, `KOI8`, `MULE_INTERNAL`, `UTF8`, `WIN866`
`WIN1252` | WIN1252, `UTF8`
`WIN1256` | WIN1256, `UTF8`
`WIN1258` | WIN1258, `UTF8`

To enable automatic character set conversion, you have to tell PostgreSQL the character set (encoding) you would like to use in the client. There are several ways to accomplish this:

- Using the `\encoding` command in psql. `\encoding` allows you to change client encoding on the fly. For example, to change the encoding to `SJIS`, type:

      \encoding SJIS

- Using libpq functions. `\encoding` actually calls `PQsetClientEncoding()` for its purpose.

      int PQsetClientEncoding(PGconn *conn, const char *encoding);

  where `conn` is a connection to the server, and `encoding` is the encoding you want to use. If the function successfully sets the encoding, it returns 0, otherwise -1. The current encoding for this connection can be determined by using:

      int PQclientEncoding(const PGconn *conn);

  Note that it returns the encoding ID, not a symbolic string such as `EUC_JP`. To convert an encoding ID to an encoding name, you can use:

      char *pg_encoding_to_char(int encoding_id);

- Using `SET client_encoding TO`. Setting the client encoding can be done with this SQL command:

      SET CLIENT_ENCODING TO 'value';

  Also you can use the more standard SQL syntax `SET NAMES` for this purpose:

      SET NAMES 'value';

  To query the current client encoding:

      SHOW client_encoding;

  To return to the default encoding:

      RESET client_encoding;

- Using `PGCLIENTENCODING`. If the environment variable `PGCLIENTENCODING` is defined in the client's environment, that client encoding is automatically selected when a connection to the server is made. (This can subsequently be overridden using any of the other methods mentioned above.)

- Using the configuration variable client_encoding. If the `client_encoding` variable is set, that client encoding is automatically selected when a connection to the server is made. (This can subsequently be overridden using any of the other methods mentioned above.)

If the conversion of a particular character is not possible [mdash ] suppose you chose `EUC_JP` for the server and `LATIN1` for the client, then some Japanese characters cannot be converted to `LATIN1` [mdash ] it is transformed to its hexadecimal byte values in parentheses, e.g., `(826C)`.

If the client character set is defined as `SQL_ASCII`, encoding conversion is disabled, regardless of the server's character set. Just as for the server, use of `SQL_ASCII` is unwise unless you are working with all-ASCII data.

### 21.2.4. Further Reading

These are good sources to start learning about various kinds of encoding systems.

http://www.i18ngurus.com/docs/984813247.html

  An extensive collection of documents about character sets, encodings, and code pages.

ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/examples/nutshell/ujip/doc/cjk.inf

  Detailed explanations of `EUC_JP`, `EUC_CN`, `EUC_KR`, `EUC_TW` appear in section 3.2.

http://www.unicode.org/

  The web site of the Unicode Consortium

RFC 2044

  UTF-8 is defined here.