From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: =?utf-8?B?U3TDtmNrZXIgQmVybmhhcmQgLSBha3RpdndlYiBHbWJI?=
 <bernhard.stoecker@aktivweb.de>
cc: "pgsql-bugs@lists.postgresql.org" <pgsql-bugs@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: bug report: initdb failure on Microsoft Windows if path to initdb
 contains special chars
In-reply-to: <5e8129efb9f44dbd8ee72323f0ed3f0a@aktivweb.de>
References: <5e8129efb9f44dbd8ee72323f0ed3f0a@aktivweb.de>
Comments: In-reply-to =?utf-8?B?U3TDtmNrZXIgQmVybmhhcmQgLSBha3RpdndlYiBHbWJI?=
 <bernhard.stoecker@aktivweb.de>
	message dated "Tue, 04 Feb 2025 13:57:29 +0000"
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Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2025 10:55:48 -0500
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=3D?utf-8?B?U3TDtmNrZXIgQmVybmhhcmQgLSBha3RpdndlYiBHbWJI?=3D <bernhard.sto=
ecker@aktivweb.de> writes:
> I=E2=80=99d like to report an issue concerning initdb on Microsoft Windo=
ws if running initdb.exe from a directory that contains special chars like=
 German umlauts. The error message is: FATAL: invalid byte sequence for en=
coding "UTF8": 0xf6 0x63 0x6b

The directory name contains those, you mean?

Our position on this is that the data directory's path name has to be
valid in the encoding you are selecting for the database.  Otherwise
it's just too much of a mess to deal with inside-the-database values
like the data_directory setting.  It looks like you are using some
single-byte encoding (probably a Windows code page?) for your
filesystem names, so you should do the same for initdb's -E option.
Or switch to an all-ASCII path name.

			regards, tom lane