Re: db encoding

Oliver Elphick <olly(at)lfix(dot)co(dot)uk> writes:
> I currently use pg_encoding in Debian's automatic upgrade script to
> extract the existing default encoding from pg_database, thus:
> $ psql -q -t -d template1 -c "select encoding from pg_database where
> datname = 'template1'"
> 0
> and then I use it to translate that number into an encoding name that
> can be fed to initdb.

But you can do that with pg_encoding_to_char:

regression=# select pg_encoding_to_char(encoding) from pg_database where datname = 'template1';
pg_encoding_to_char
---------------------
SQL_ASCII
(1 row)

AFAICS the standalone pg_encoding program is only useful if you need to
do encoding-number conversions while the postmaster is not available.

regards, tom lane