[Phpgroupware-developers] Re: utf-8 vs iso-8859-1

[Dave Hall]

On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 09:08 +0100, Sigurd Nes wrote:
> I'm reposting this off the list...
> 

No problem, I have CC'd my response there.  The lag is frustrating.

> Sigurd
> 
> > From: Sigurd Nes address@hidden
> > Sent: 2006-02-22 18:09:51 CET
> > To: address@hidden
> > Subject: utf-8 vs iso-8859-1
> > 
> > The conversion to utf-8 is giving me problems.
> > I have a database with more than 5000 dwellings, 35000
> workorders ...
> > The language is norwegian - and I really would like to keep the
> character set (at least for norwegian) - this way I can use what query
> tool (as M$access) I like to make anaylis without the need for
> postprocessing.
> > Please enlighten me if I am missing something.
> > 

There are several reasons for the switch to utf-8.  The main one is that
from db to the user interface we can know that we are always dealing
with utf-8.  We can then remove things like lang('chartset').  

Unicode also means we can have multi lingual installs.  For example if a
company has operations across Europe they can not use a single phpgw
install, as we currently use at least 3 different charsets for
translations.  I would also like to hardcode urf-8 into stuff instead of
having to keep track of charsets which potentially causes problems.  It
is also easier if everyone knows to use utf-8 compliant tools.

I haven't used M$ Access since O2k days, but I know that OO.o2 Base
allows you to specify the charset for the database connection.  Maybe M$
Access has the same option tucked away somewhere

What are the problems you have?  I am happy to see if we can find a way
of fixing the problems instead of switching back to encoding soup :)

Cheers

Dave