character problem

Hi,
I've got a postgres installation which is accessed by users thru a set
of perl CGIs. Unlickily, when the user enters some characters in a
description (string) field, like "èòéàùì", the string is stored in the
database with other characters instead of those digited by the user. It
seems as the locale setting of the client and of the server are
different, but in the postgresql.conf file I didn't find such setting.
My question is: how can I fix the problem? And most important, is it
possible to adjust the already inserted strings without having to update
the tables? I mean, is it possible to change the locale settings thus
the strings in the database are displayed rightly?

Thanks,
Luca
--
Luca Ferrari
fluca1978@infinito.it