Issue with loading unicode characters with copy command - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Kiran K V
Subject Issue with loading unicode characters with copy command
Date
Msg-id CAGv0ivrN1eEwSiaJ+Ey0fVPuGg47rO1u3gUWtm3Taw1+3qzRRQ@mail.gmail.com
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Responses Re: Issue with loading unicode characters with copy command
List pgsql-general

Hi,


I have a UTF8 database and simple table with two columns (integer and varchar). Created a csv file with some multibyte characters and trying to perform load operation using the copy command.

 

Database info:

Postgresql database details:

   Name    |  Owner   | Encoding |      Collate       |       Ctype        |   Access privileges

-----------+----------+----------+--------------------+--------------------+-----------------------

postgres  | postgres | UTF8     | English_India.1252 | English_India.1252 |

 

(Note: I also tried with collate utf8 and no luck)


postgres=# set client_encoding='UTF8';

SET

 

Table:

create table public.test ( PKCOL integer not null, STR1 character varying(64) null, primary key( PKCOL ))      

        

csv contents:

1|"àáâãäåæçèéêëìíîï"

 

After data loading, actual data is becoming

à áâãäåæçèéêëìÃîï

hex of this is -  c2a1c2a2c2a3c2a4c2a5c2a6c2a7c2a8c2a9c2aac2abc2acc2aec2af

 

The hex values are indeed the UTF-8 encodings of the characters in your expected string, and the presence of `C2` before each character is indicative of how UTF-8 represents certain characters.

In UTF-8, characters from the extended Latin set (like `à`, `á`, `â`, etc.) are represented as two bytes. The first byte `C2` or `C3` indicates that this is a two-byte character, and the second byte specifies the character. For example:

- `à` is represented as `C3 A0`

- `á` is `C3 A1`

- `â` is `C3 A2`, and so on.

In this case, the `C2` byte is getting interpreted as a separate character and that is the likely reason that an `Â` (which corresponds to `C2`) is seen before each intended character. Looks like UTF-8 encoded data is mistakenly interpreted as Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) or Windows-1252, where each byte is treated as a separate character.


Please advise. Thank you very much.


Regards,

Kiran

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