Database and application locales

Choose the right locale for your database and application programs.

When designing a database and the application programs that connect to this database, it is important to consider what character set will be used in the database server, and the character set used by application programs.

Most database servers support character set conversion options, thus it is possible to have different configurations, for example:

  1. Database uses ISO88591, application programs use ISO88591
  2. Database uses UTF-8, application programs use ISO88591
  3. Database uses UTF-8, application programs use UTF-8
Important: The locale definition of the database client software must match the application locale defined for Genero. For more details, see Database client settings.

Consider also the length semantics to be used (is CHAR(10) 10 bytes or 10 characters?).

For a detailed discussion about character sets and length semantics, see CHAR and VARCHAR types.