Re: PostgreSQL 8.3.7: soundex function returns UTF-16 characters

Frans <frans@geodan.nl> writes:
> We have just discovered a problem with the soundex function in
> PostgreSQL 8.3.7. The problem is easy to reproduce. The following query
> returns the ASCII code of the soundex representation of the Greek letter Pi:

> select ascii (soundex('Π'));

> In PostgreSQL 8.2.6 the result would be 0 (character null). In
> PostgreSQL 8.3.7 the return value is 944, which is the UTF-16 code of
> this letter.

Hm, I take it you are working in database encoding utf8?  The
fuzzystrmatch module doesn't really work with utf8 (nor any other
multibyte encoding), because it depends on the <ctype.h> functions.
What you'll probably get when applying it to non-ascii utf8 is
an invalidly encoded string.

This is a known limitation that probably should be better documented.
It was just as broken in 8.2 (and every previous version), though.

            regards, tom lane