Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2022 12:40:50 -0400
From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: Sbob <sbob@quadratum-braccas.com>
Cc: Pgsql-admin <pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: DB Encoding question
Message-ID: <YwOxkk0X0Ikp0baG@momjian.us>
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On Mon, Aug 22, 2022 at 10:20:41AM -0600, Sbob wrote:
> All;
> 
> 
> We are converting from DB2 on the mainframe to PostgreSQL 14 in the cloud.
> We have been using IIDR to dump DB2 tables to CSV files and then using
> pg_loader / COPY to import the files. However the DB2 Encoding is EBCDIC and
> the PostgreSQL db encoding is UTF8, this is causing some rows / columns to
> fail when we try to load the data into PostgreSQL
> 
> Will we be better off changing the PostgreSQL encoding to match the DB2
> database? Will this cause other issues down the road? Is there a 'best
> practice' for this use case?

I would convert the dump file to be UTF8 using iconv and then load it. 
I would also suggest setting the _client_ encoding to EBCDIC and have
the server encoding be UTF8, but we don't support EBCDIC as far as I can
tell.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Indecision is a decision.  Inaction is an action.  Mark Batterson