Re: Internationalization

Dennis Gearon <gearond(at)fireserve(dot)net> writes:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> The indexes on the shared system tables (eg, pg_database) are the only
>> issue here. One possible solution is to require that no locale-aware
>> datatypes ever be used in these indexes. I think right now this is true
>> because "name" doesn't use locale-aware sorting; but we'd have to be
>> careful not to break the restriction in future.
>>
> Tom what about table names? Isn't it part of the SQL spec to be able
> to set table names to other langauges other than English?

[shrug...] So which language/encoding would you like to force everyone
to use?

The issue is not really whether you can create a database name that
looks like however you want. The issues are (a) what it will look like
to someone else using a different encoding; and (b) how it will sort if
you ask for "select * from pg_database order by datname", relative to
someone else's database name that he thinks is in a different locale and
encoding than you think yours is.

AFAICT the Postgres user community is not ready to accept a "thou shalt
use Unicode" decree, so I don't think that mandating a one-size-fits-all
answer is going to fly.

regards, tom lane