Re: Updating default PostgreSQL server encoding from SQL_ASCII to UTF8

[Luis Falcon <falcon%gnuhealth.org@localhost>]

El Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:23:29 -0400
Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost> escribió:
> > That makes sense. It might be good to place a warning / hint
> > at the initialization process, pasting the statement for postgres on
> > SQL_ASCII, so it does not go unseen. Something like:
> >
> > initdb: warning: enabling "trust" authentication for local
> > connections initdb: hint: You can change this by editing
> > pg_hba.conf or using the option -A, or --auth-local and
> > --auth-host, the next time you run initdb.
> > initdb: warning:
> > 	The SQL_ASCII setting behaves considerably differently from
> > the other settings. When the server character set is SQL_ASCII, the
> > 	server interprets byte values 0–127 according to the ASCII
> > 	standard, while byte values 128–255 are taken as
> > uninterpreted characters. No encoding conversion will be done when
> > the setting is SQL_ASCII. Thus, this setting is not so much a
> > 	declaration that a specific encoding is in use, as a
> > 	declaration of ignorance about the encoding. In most cases,
> > if you are working with any non-ASCII data, it is unwise to use
> > 	the SQL_ASCII setting because PostgreSQL will be unable to
> > help you by converting or validating non-ASCII character  
> 
> It seems to me, this is really an upstream issue, not a NetBSD issue.

I think so too. It would be nice if PostgreSQL would send the warning
for any to be initialized cluster with SQL_ASCII. The question is if
NetBSD is the only one (in that case, it would also be a NetBSD issue) .
Don't know about OpenBSD. I know FreeBSD and GNU/Linux do not run into
it.
> 
> > PS: I'll be doing some tests importing demo GNU Health databases
> > (all unicode) I have from other systems and report if any issues on
> > this matter arise.  
> 
> That's great that you are trying go get GNU Health going on NetBSD.
> 
Thank you. GNU Health on NetBSD is now *high priority*.

> Probably, GNU Health's "how to set up your db" should have a caution,
> and pointers to pgsql upstream docs.  Perhaps at startup, warn/fail if
> the actual GNU health databases are not in UTF8.
> 

Yes, I'm actually documenting a wiki for the installation on GNU Health
on NetBSD, that, once polished, will be the base for the official
installation guide.

Happy hacking
Luis