UNICODE question

Hi all.

I have installed postgresql - version 7.1.3 on Linux 7.2
(I configured postgresql at install time with
'--enable-multibyte=UNICODE --enable-unicode-conversion'.)

I have just completed porting our current suite of C++ applications (that
use ODBC) from SQL SERVER to ORACLE and DB2 and am now attempting the same
with POSTGRESQL.

A major criteria for our software is the support of UNICODE.

Looking through the documentation at the datatypes available I am a little
confused.

For example, to store unicode data you can use the following database column
types:

SQL SERVER:
nchar, nvarchar and ntext.

ORACLE:
nvarchar2, nclob

DB2:
vargraphic, dbclob

Looking through the documentation at the available character data types
under POSTGRESQL I can only
see character() and character varying() ?. Are these types stored in 16 bit
format or ASCII 8 bit ?
Can I store a UNICODE string in a character() column on the database ??? -
surely not.

Thanks for any help.

Andy
ahm(at)exel(dot)co(dot)uk