In a context using normalization, wouldn't you typically want to store a normalized-text type that could perhaps
(dependingon locale) take advantage of simpler, more-efficient comparison functions? Whether you're doing
INSERT/UPDATE,or importing a flat text file, if you canonicalize characters and substrings of identical meaning when
trivialdistinctions of encoding are irrelevant, you're better off later. User-invocable normalization functions by
themselvesdon't make much sense. (If Postgres now supports binary- or mixed-binary-and-text flat files, perhaps for
restorepurposes, the same thing applies.)<br /><br />David Hudson<br /><br />
