(BOn Aug 26, 2004, at 12:27 PM, Gerard Samuel wrote:
(B
(B> My site/code/database is developed primarily for the english language.
(B> I've had people from "The Far East" add content to my site using their
(B> native language, and it is displaying properly in the site.
(B> But Im a bit concerned about the number of characters these languages
(B> use.
(B> For example, I've had someone enter ->
(B> chinese testing$B!!CfJ8(B
(B>
(B> It is saved in the database as ->
(B> chinese testing 中文
(B>
(B> Now, forgive my ignorance, but I have no idea what the additional
(B> chinese characters mean, but from the values in the database, Im
(B> assuming that it amounts to 3 characters.
(B> But if Im correct that those are 3 characters, it is
(B> using up 24 characters in a column.
(B>
(B> My concern is that what if I were to limit a column to say 25 "english"
(B> characters, and a chinese fellow, comes by and hypothetically says
(B> "Hello World" in chinese and goes over the limit of the column, the
(B> data
(B> will be truncated.
(B>
(B> Is there anything that can be done to overcome this shortcoming?
(B>
(B> Im currently using PostgreSQL 7.4.2, using SQL_ASCII as the database
(B> characterset, FreeBSD 4.10, php 4.3.6.
(B>
(B> Thanks for any advise you can provide...
(B>
(B>
(B
(Bwhy not just use a longer column? (text instead of varchar)
