> > Perhaps the locale data can be used to gather this information?
>
> It's certainly there ! locale data contains all information about
> specific character set and encoding. Is it possible to use it to create
> indices ? It should be slower but benefits of using indices will cover
> expenses for non-US people. I didn't notice such behaivour in Informix
> and Oracle.
>
Informix has the national character handling, and it is indexable in
Informix.
But it is not done for the standard types char and varchar. In Informix
you use nchar and nvarchar, and have one locale defined per database.
In Oracle you have national characters, but access is not indexable.
Actually the SQL standard has something to say about national char
and varchar. I think it is wrong that char and varchar change their behavior
in postgresql, if you enable locale. A locale sensitive column needs to be
specified
as such in the create table statement according to the standard.
I never enable locale.
Andreas
