On Wednesday 11 February 2009 18:00:31 Tom Lane wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> > Tom Lane wrote:
> >> Reflecting on the bigger picture ... I would imagine that the vast
> >> majority of existing applications depend on client_encoding settings
> >> that come from postgresql.conf, ALTER USER SET, ALTER DATABASE SET, or
> >> just the default (== database encoding). I don't think a solution that
> >> penalizes those cases and makes only the case of setting it via
> >> PGCLIENTENCODING work nicely is going to make very many people happy.
> >
> > I don't have any survey data available, but I think this assessment is
> > semantically wrong. Usefully, the client encoding can come only from
> > the client, or be defaulted (and even that is semantically wrong).
>
> In an ideal world, perhaps so, but do you deny my point that that's not
> reality?
I have never seen a setup where the client encoding did not come from the
default or the client (and the person who set it up knew what they were
doing). I don't think the other cases are worth optimizing.