php pear DB, UTF8 settngs question

Hi,

I recently moved a web site that uses the PEAR DB module to communicate 
w/postgresql from an RH9 server to an RHEL3 server. Before doing this, I 
  had changed the /etc/sysconfig/i18n setting to en_US from en_US.UTF8, 
which I did because it was suggested in some spamassassin installation 
mail discussions that spamassassin and other perl scripts might not work 
without making this change.

I then created a new postgresql database, which automatically set en_US 
for LC_MESSAGES, LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, LC_TIME in the postgresql.conf 
file. I found that my DB::connect() failed with a "database not found" 
error message. When I changed the settings for LC_x variables back to 
en_US.UTF-8 in the postgresql.conf file, my connection succeeded and the 
appication seemed to work as expected.

I found I could communicate with the database  from a local or remote 
server via psql, regardless of the LC_x variable settings.

I was hoping to be pointed to some documentation or any basic insights 
into how these settings affect PHP connections to postgresql.

Am I making a mistake to have changed the /etc/sysconfig/i18n setting 
before initializing and loading the postgresql database? Is it OK to 
have changed the settings for the LC_x variables in postgresql.conf 
after the fact?

Thanks for any help understanding this, Bill Wraith