<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Localization</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK REV="MADE" HREF="mailto:pgsql-docs@postgresql.org"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Server Administration" HREF="admin.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Authentication problems" HREF="client-authentication-problems.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Character Set Support" HREF="multibyte.html"><LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="stylesheet.css"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><META NAME="creation" CONTENT="2007-02-02T03:57:22"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="CHAPTER" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="5" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="client-authentication-problems.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="client-authentication.html" >Fast Backward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="maintenance.html" >Fast Forward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="multibyte.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="CHAPTER" ><H1 ><A NAME="CHARSET" ></A >Chapter 20. Localization</H1 ><DIV CLASS="TOC" ><DL ><DT ><B >Table of Contents</B ></DT ><DT >20.1. <A HREF="charset.html#LOCALE" >Locale Support</A ></DT ><DD ><DL ><DT >20.1.1. <A HREF="charset.html#AEN20381" >Overview</A ></DT ><DT >20.1.2. <A HREF="charset.html#AEN20454" >Behavior</A ></DT ><DT >20.1.3. <A HREF="charset.html#AEN20478" >Problems</A ></DT ></DL ></DD ><DT >20.2. <A HREF="multibyte.html" >Character Set Support</A ></DT ><DD ><DL ><DT >20.2.1. <A HREF="multibyte.html#MULTIBYTE-CHARSET-SUPPORTED" >Supported Character Sets</A ></DT ><DT >20.2.2. <A HREF="multibyte.html#AEN20670" >Setting the Character Set</A ></DT ><DT >20.2.3. <A HREF="multibyte.html#AEN20704" >Automatic Character Set Conversion Between Server and Client</A ></DT ><DT >20.2.4. <A HREF="multibyte.html#AEN21010" >Further Reading</A ></DT ></DL ></DD ></DL ></DIV ><P > This chapter describes the available localization features from the point of view of the administrator. <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > supports localization with two approaches: <P ></P ></P><UL ><LI ><P > Using the locale features of the operating system to provide locale-specific collation order, number formatting, translated messages, and other aspects. </P ></LI ><LI ><P > Providing a number of different character sets defined in the <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > server, including multiple-byte character sets, to support storing text in all kinds of languages, and providing character set translation between client and server. </P ></LI ></UL ><P> </P ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="LOCALE" >20.1. Locale Support</A ></H1 ><A NAME="AEN20375" ></A ><P > <I CLASS="FIRSTTERM" >Locale</I > support refers to an application respecting cultural preferences regarding alphabets, sorting, number formatting, etc. <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > uses the standard ISO C and <ACRONYM CLASS="ACRONYM" >POSIX</ACRONYM > locale facilities provided by the server operating system. For additional information refer to the documentation of your system. </P ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="AEN20381" >20.1.1. Overview</A ></H2 ><P > Locale support is automatically initialized when a database cluster is created using <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >initdb</TT >. <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >initdb</TT > will initialize the database cluster with the locale setting of its execution environment by default, so if your system is already set to use the locale that you want in your database cluster then there is nothing else you need to do. If you want to use a different locale (or you are not sure which locale your system is set to), you can instruct <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >initdb</TT > exactly which locale to use by specifying the <TT CLASS="OPTION" >--locale</TT > option. For example: </P><PRE CLASS="SCREEN" >initdb --locale=sv_SE</PRE ><P> </P ><P > This example sets the locale to Swedish (<TT CLASS="LITERAL" >sv</TT >) as spoken in Sweden (<TT CLASS="LITERAL" >SE</TT >). Other possibilities might be <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >en_US</TT > (U.S. English) and <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >fr_CA</TT > (French Canadian). If more than one character set can be useful for a locale then the specifications look like this: <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >cs_CZ.ISO8859-2</TT >. What locales are available under what names on your system depends on what was provided by the operating system vendor and what was installed. (On most systems, the command <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >locale -a</TT > will provide a list of available locales.) </P ><P > Occasionally it is useful to mix rules from several locales, e.g., use English collation rules but Spanish messages. To support that, a set of locale subcategories exist that control only a certain aspect of the localization rules: <DIV CLASS="INFORMALTABLE" ><P ></P ><A NAME="AEN20397" ></A ><TABLE BORDER="1" CLASS="CALSTABLE" ><COL><COL><TBODY ><TR ><TD ><TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_COLLATE</TT ></TD ><TD >String sort order</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_CTYPE</TT ></TD ><TD >Character classification (What is a letter? Its upper-case equivalent?)</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_MESSAGES</TT ></TD ><TD >Language of messages</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_MONETARY</TT ></TD ><TD >Formatting of currency amounts</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_NUMERIC</TT ></TD ><TD >Formatting of numbers</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_TIME</TT ></TD ><TD >Formatting of dates and times</TD ></TR ></TBODY ></TABLE ><P ></P ></DIV > The category names translate into names of <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >initdb</TT > options to override the locale choice for a specific category. For instance, to set the locale to French Canadian, but use U.S. rules for formatting currency, use <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >initdb --locale=fr_CA --lc-monetary=en_US</TT >. </P ><P > If you want the system to behave as if it had no locale support, use the special locale <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >C</TT > or <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >POSIX</TT >. </P ><P > The nature of some locale categories is that their value has to be fixed for the lifetime of a database cluster. That is, once <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >initdb</TT > has run, you cannot change them anymore. <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >LC_COLLATE</TT > and <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >LC_CTYPE</TT > are those categories. They affect the sort order of indexes, so they must be kept fixed, or indexes on text columns will become corrupt. <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > enforces this by recording the values of <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_COLLATE</TT > and <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_CTYPE</TT > that are seen by <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >initdb</TT >. The server automatically adopts those two values when it is started. </P ><P > The other locale categories can be changed as desired whenever the server is running by setting the run-time configuration variables that have the same name as the locale categories (see <A HREF="runtime-config.html#RUNTIME-CONFIG-CLIENT-FORMAT" >Section 16.4.8.2</A > for details). The defaults that are chosen by <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >initdb</TT > are actually only written into the configuration file <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >postgresql.conf</TT > to serve as defaults when the server is started. If you delete the assignments from <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >postgresql.conf</TT > then the server will inherit the settings from the execution environment. </P ><P > Note that the locale behavior of the server is determined by the environment variables seen by the server, not by the environment of any client. Therefore, be careful to configure the correct locale settings before starting the server. A consequence of this is that if client and server are set up in different locales, messages may appear in different languages depending on where they originated. </P ><DIV CLASS="NOTE" ><BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="NOTE" ><P ><B >Note: </B > When we speak of inheriting the locale from the execution environment, this means the following on most operating systems: For a given locale category, say the collation, the following environment variables are consulted in this order until one is found to be set: <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_ALL</TT >, <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_COLLATE</TT > (the variable corresponding to the respective category), <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LANG</TT >. If none of these environment variables are set then the locale defaults to <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >C</TT >. </P ><P > Some message localization libraries also look at the environment variable <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LANGUAGE</TT > which overrides all other locale settings for the purpose of setting the language of messages. If in doubt, please refer to the documentation of your operating system, in particular the documentation about <SPAN CLASS="APPLICATION" >gettext</SPAN >, for more information. </P ></BLOCKQUOTE ></DIV ><P > To enable messages to be translated to the user's preferred language, <ACRONYM CLASS="ACRONYM" >NLS</ACRONYM > must have been enabled at build time. This choice is independent of the other locale support. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="AEN20454" >20.1.2. Behavior</A ></H2 ><P > Locale support influences the following features: <P ></P ></P><UL ><LI ><P > Sort order in queries using <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >ORDER BY</TT > <A NAME="AEN20461" ></A > </P ></LI ><LI ><P > The ability to use indexes with <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >LIKE</TT > clauses <A NAME="AEN20467" ></A > </P ></LI ><LI ><P > The <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >to_char</CODE > family of functions </P ></LI ></UL ><P> </P ><P > The drawback of using locales other than <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >C</TT > or <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >POSIX</TT > in <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > is its performance impact. It slows character handling and prevents ordinary indexes from being used by <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >LIKE</TT >. For this reason use locales only if you actually need them. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="AEN20478" >20.1.3. Problems</A ></H2 ><P > If locale support doesn't work in spite of the explanation above, check that the locale support in your operating system is correctly configured. To check what locales are installed on your system, you may use the command <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >locale -a</TT > if your operating system provides it. </P ><P > Check that <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > is actually using the locale that you think it is. <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_COLLATE</TT > and <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_CTYPE</TT > settings are determined at <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >initdb</TT > time and cannot be changed without repeating <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >initdb</TT >. Other locale settings including <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_MESSAGES</TT > and <TT CLASS="ENVAR" >LC_MONETARY</TT > are initially determined by the environment the server is started in, but can be changed on-the-fly. You can check the active locale settings using the <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >SHOW</TT > command. </P ><P > The directory <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >src/test/locale</TT > in the source distribution contains a test suite for <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN >'s locale support. </P ><P > Client applications that handle server-side errors by parsing the text of the error message will obviously have problems when the server's messages are in a different language. Authors of such applications are advised to make use of the error code scheme instead. </P ><P > Maintaining catalogs of message translations requires the on-going efforts of many volunteers that want to see <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > speak their preferred language well. If messages in your language are currently not available or not fully translated, your assistance would be appreciated. If you want to help, refer to <A HREF="nls.html" >Chapter 44</A > or write to the developers' mailing list. </P ></DIV ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="client-authentication-problems.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="multibyte.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Authentication problems</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="admin.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Character Set Support</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >