PostgreSQL 7.2.1 Documentation
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# 5.2. Multibyte Support

> Author: Tatsuo Ishii (`<ishii@postgresql.org>`), last updated 2000-03-22. Check Tatsuo's web site for more information.

Multibyte (MB) support is intended to allow PostgreSQL to handle multiple-byte character sets such as EUC (Extended Unix Code), Unicode, and Mule internal code. With MB enabled you can use multibyte character sets in regular expressions (regexp), LIKE, and some other functions. The default encoding system is selected while initializing your PostgreSQL installation using initdb. Note that this 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 encoding system.

## 5.2.1. Enabling Multibyte Support

Run configure with the multibyte option:

    ./configure --enable-multibyte[=encoding_system]

where `encoding_system` can be one of the values in the following table:

Table 5-1. Character Set Encodings

Encoding | Description
--- | ---
`SQL_ASCII` | ASCII
`EUC_JP` | Japanese EUC
`EUC_CN` | Chinese EUC
`EUC_KR` | Korean EUC
`EUC_TW` | Taiwan EUC
`UNICODE` | Unicode (UTF-8)
`MULE_INTERNAL` | Mule internal code
`LATIN1` | ISO 8859-1 ECMA-94 Latin Alphabet No.1
`LATIN2` | ISO 8859-2 ECMA-94 Latin Alphabet No.2
`LATIN3` | ISO 8859-3 ECMA-94 Latin Alphabet No.3
`LATIN4` | ISO 8859-4 ECMA-94 Latin Alphabet No.4
`LATIN5` | ISO 8859-9 ECMA-128 Latin Alphabet No.5
`LATIN6` | ISO 8859-10 ECMA-144 Latin Alphabet No.6
`LATIN7` | ISO 8859-13 Latin Alphabet No.7
`LATIN8` | ISO 8859-14 Latin Alphabet No.8
`LATIN9` | ISO 8859-15 Latin Alphabet No.9
`LATIN10` | ISO 8859-16 ASRO SR 14111 Latin Alphabet No.10
`ISO-8859-5` | ECMA-113 Latin/Cyrillic
`ISO-8859-6` | ECMA-114 Latin/Arabic
`ISO-8859-7` | ECMA-118 Latin/Greek
`ISO-8859-8` | ECMA-121 Latin/Hebrew
`KOI8` | KOI8-R(U)
`WIN` | Windows CP1251
`ALT` | Windows CP866

> Important: Before PostgreSQL7.2, `LATIN5` mistakenly meant ISO 8859-5. From 7.2 on, `LATIN5` means ISO 8859-9. If you have a `LATIN5` database created on 7.1 or earlier and want to migrate to 7.2 (or later), you should be very careful about this change.

> Important: Not all APIs supports all the encodings listed above. For example, the PostgreSQL JDBC driver does not support `MULE_INTERNAL`, `LATIN6`, `LATIN8`, and `LATIN10`.

Here is an example of configuring PostgreSQL to use a Japanese encoding by default:

    $ ./configure --enable-multibyte=EUC_JP

If the encoding system is omitted (`./configure --enable-multibyte`), `SQL_ASCII` is assumed.

## 5.2.2. Setting the Encoding

initdb defines the default encoding for a PostgreSQL installation. For example:

    $ initdb -E EUC_JP

sets the default encoding to `EUC_JP` (Extended Unix Code for Japanese). Note that you can use `--encoding` instead of `-E` if you prefer to type longer option strings. If no `-E` or `--encoding` option is given, the encoding specified at configure time is used.

You can create a database with a different encoding:

    $ createdb -E EUC_KR korean

will create a database named korean with `EUC_KR` encoding. Another way to accomplish this is to use a SQL command:

    CREATE DATABASE korean WITH ENCODING = 'EUC_KR';

The encoding for a database is represented as an encoding column in the `pg_database` system catalog. 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
     regression    | t-ishii | SQL_ASCII
     template1     | t-ishii | EUC_JP
     test          | t-ishii | EUC_JP
     unicode       | t-ishii | UNICODE
    (9 rows)

## 5.2.3. Automatic encoding translation between server and client

PostgreSQL supports an automatic encoding translation between server and client for some encodings. The available combinations are listed in Table 5-2.

Table 5-2. Client/Server Character Set Encodings

Server Encoding | Available Client Encodings
--- | ---
`SQL_ASCII` | `SQL_ASCII`, `UNICODE`, `MULE_INTERNAL`
`EUC_JP` | `EUC_JP`, `SJIS`, `UNICODE`, `MULE_INTERNAL`
`EUC_TW` | `EUC_TW`, `BIG5`, `UNICODE`, `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN1` | `LATIN1`, `UNICODE` `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN2` | `LATIN2`, `WIN1250`, `UNICODE`, `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN3` | `LATIN3`, `UNICODE` `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN4` | `LATIN4`, `UNICODE` `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN5` | `LATIN5`, `UNICODE` `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN6` | `LATIN6`, `UNICODE` `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN7` | `LATIN7`, `UNICODE` `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN8` | `LATIN8`, `UNICODE` `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN9` | `LATIN9`, `UNICODE` `MULE_INTERNAL`
`LATIN10` | `LATIN10`, `UNICODE` `MULE_INTERNAL`
`ISO_8859_5` | `ISO_8859_5`, `UNICODE`
`ISO_8859_6` | `ISO_8859_6`, `UNICODE`
`ISO_8859_7` | `ISO_8859_7`, `UNICODE`
`ISO_8859_8` | `ISO_8859_8`, `UNICODE`
`ISO_8859_9` | `ISO_8859_9`, `WIN`, `ALT`, `KOI8R`, `UNICODE`, `MULE_INTERNAL`
`UNICODE` | `EUC_JP`, `SJIS`, `EUC_KR`, `EUC_CN`, `EUC_TW`, `BIG5`, `LATIN1` to `LATIN10`, `ISO_8859_5`, `ISO_8859_6`, `ISO_8859_7`, `ISO_8859_8`, `WIN`, `ALT`, `KOI8`
`MULE_INTERNAL` | `EUC_JP`, `SJIS`, `EUC_KR`, `EUC_CN`, `EUC_TW`, `BIG5`, `LATIN1` to `LATIN5`, `WIN`, `ALT`, `WIN1250`
`KOI8` | `ISO_8859_9`, `WIN`, `ALT`, `KOI8`, `UNICODE`, `MULE_INTERNAL`
`WIN` | `ISO_8859_9`, `WIN`, `ALT`, `KOI8`, `UNICODE`, `MULE_INTERNAL`
`ALT` | `ISO_8859_9`, `WIN`, `ALT`, `KOI8`, `UNICODE`, `MULE_INTERNAL`

To enable the automatic encoding translation, you have to tell PostgreSQL the 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 an encoding you want to use. If it successfully sets the encoding, it returns 0, otherwise -1. The current encoding for this connection can be shown 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 'encoding';

  Also you can use the SQL92 syntax `SET NAMES` for this purpose:

      SET NAMES 'encoding';

  To query the current client encoding:

      SHOW CLIENT_ENCODING;

  To return to the default encoding:

      RESET CLIENT_ENCODING;

- Using `PGCLIENTENCODING`. If 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.)

## 5.2.4. About Unicode

An automatic encoding translation between Unicode and other encodings has been supported since PostgreSQL 7.1. For 7.1 it was not enabled by default. To enable this feature, run configure with the `--enable-unicode-conversion` option. Note that this requires the `--enable-multibyte` option also.

For 7.2, `--enable-unicode-conversion` is not necessary. The Unicode conversion functionality is automatically enabled if `--enable-multibyte` is specified.

## 5.2.5. What happens if the translation is not possible?

Suppose you choose `EUC_JP` for the server and `LATIN1` for the client, then some Japanese characters cannot be translated into `LATIN1`. In this case, a letter that cannot be represented in the `LATIN1` character set would be transformed as:

    (HEXA DECIMAL)

## 5.2.6. References

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

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.

## 5.2.7. History

    Dec 7, 2000
    	* An automatic encoding translation between Unicode and other
    	  encodings are implemented
    	* Changes above will appear in 7.1

    May 20, 2000
    	* SJIS UDC (NEC selection IBM kanji) support contributed
    	  by Eiji Tokuya
    	* Changes above will appear in 7.0.1

    Mar 22, 2000
    	* Add new libpq functions PQsetClientEncoding, PQclientEncoding
    	* ./configure --with-mb=EUC_JP
    	  now deprecated. use
    	  ./configure --enable-multibyte=EUC_JP
    	  instead
      	* Add SQL_ASCII regression test case
    	* Add SJIS User Defined Character (UDC) support
    	* All of above will appear in 7.0

    July 11, 1999
    	* Add support for WIN1250 (Windows Czech) as a client encoding
    	  (contributed by Pavel Behal)
    	* fix some compiler warnings (contributed by Tomoaki Nishiyama)

    Mar 23, 1999
    	* Add support for KOI8(KOI8-R), WIN(CP1251), ALT(CP866)
    	  (thanks Oleg Broytmann for testing)
    	* Fix problem with MB and locale

    Jan 26, 1999
    	* Add support for Big5 for frontend encoding
    	  (you need to create a database with EUC_TW to use Big5)
    	* Add regression test case for EUC_TW
    	  (contributed by Jonah Kuo <jonahkuo@mail.ttn.com.tw>)

    Dec 15, 1998
    	* Bugs related to SQL_ASCII support fixed

    Nov 5, 1998
    	* 6.4 release. In this version, pg_database has "encoding"
    	  column that represents the database encoding

    Jul 22, 1998
    	* determine encoding at initdb/createdb rather than compile time
    	* support for PGCLIENTENCODING when issuing COPY command
    	* support for SQL92 syntax "SET NAMES"
    	* support for LATIN2-5
    	* add UNICODE regression test case
    	* new test suite for MB
    	* clean up source files

    Jun 5, 1998
    	* add support for the encoding translation between the backend
    	  and the frontend
    	* new command SET CLIENT_ENCODING etc. added
    	* add support for LATIN1 character set
    	* enhance 8-bit cleanliness

    April 21, 1998 some enhancements/fixes
    	* character_length(), position(), substring() are now aware of
    	  multi-byte characters
    	* add octet_length()
    	* add --with-mb option to configure
    	* new regression tests for EUC_KR
      	  (contributed by Soonmyung Hong)
    	* add some test cases to the EUC_JP regression test
    	* fix problem in regress/regress.sh in case of System V
    	* fix toupper(), tolower() to handle 8bit chars

    Mar 25, 1998 MB PL2 is incorporated into PostgreSQL 6.3.1

    Mar 10, 1998 PL2 released
    	* add regression test for EUC_JP, EUC_CN and MULE_INTERNAL
    	* add an English document (this file)
    	* fix problems concerning 8-bit single byte characters

    Mar 1, 1998 PL1 released

## 5.2.8. WIN1250 on Windows/ODBC

The WIN1250 character set on Windows client platforms can be used with PostgreSQL with locale support enabled.

The following should be kept in mind:

- Success depends on proper system locales. This has been tested with Red Hat 6.0 and Slackware 3.6, with the `cs_CZ.iso8859-2` locale.

- Never try to set the server's database encoding to WIN1250. Always use LATIN2 instead since there is no WIN1250 locale in Unix.

- The WIN1250 encoding is usable only for Windows ODBC clients. The characters are recoded on the fly, to be displayed and stored back properly.

WIN1250 on Windows/ODBC

1. Compile PostgreSQL with locale enabled and the server-side encoding set to `LATIN2`.

2. Set up your installation. Do not forget to create locale variables in your environment. For example (this may not be correct for your environment):

       LC_ALL=cs_CZ.ISO8859-2

3. You have to start the server with locales set!

4. Try it with the Czech language, and have it sort on a query.

5. Install ODBC driver for PostgreSQL on your Windows machine.

6. Set up your data source properly. Include this line in your ODBC configuration dialog in the field Connect Settings:

       SET CLIENT_ENCODING = 'WIN1250';

7. Now try it again, but in Windows with ODBC.

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