Re: [PHP-DB] Space requirements (with respect to foriegn languages)

[Jonathan Haddad]

On Aug 26, 2004, at 12:27 PM, Gerard Samuel wrote:

> My site/code/database is developed primarily for the english language.
> I've had people from "The Far East" add content to my site using their
> native language, and it is displaying properly in the site.
> But Im a bit concerned about the number of characters these languages 
> use.
> For example, I've had someone enter ->
> chinese testing　中文
>
> It is saved in the database as ->
> chinese testing　中文
>
> Now, forgive my ignorance, but I have no idea what the additional
> chinese characters mean, but from the values in the database, Im
> assuming that it amounts to 3 characters.
> But if Im correct that those are 3 characters, it is
> using up 24 characters in a column.
>
> My concern is that what if I were to limit a column to say 25 "english"
> characters, and a chinese fellow, comes by and hypothetically says
> "Hello World" in chinese and goes over the limit of the column, the 
> data
> will be truncated.
>
> Is there anything that can be done to overcome this shortcoming?
>
> Im currently using PostgreSQL 7.4.2, using SQL_ASCII as the database
> characterset, FreeBSD 4.10, php 4.3.6.
>
> Thanks for any advise you can provide...
>
>

why not just use a longer column?  (text instead of varchar)