Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:30:33 -0600 (CST)
From: Preston Landers <planders@journyx.com>
To: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Subject: Suggestion for Encodings table
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0502161114300.1141@dhcp-100-120.int.journyx.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/multibyte.html#CHARSET-TABLE

I would humbly suggest a few improvements to that Encodings table to
improve the clarity.

Many of the entries clearly indicate the language or writing system, such
as WIN1256 = "Windows CP1256 (Arabic)"

I would suggest that every single entry should be described that way with
the common language or writing system name.  Even Unicode could say "All
languages".

In particular, the "WIN" encoding just says "CP1251" -- this is Cyrillic
(Russian) but some people might just see the WIN and assume it's the
character set that Western/US Windows uses (CP 1252).

It's an easy mistake to make and one I see repeated frequently on other
web pages (calling Windows "Western" CP 1251.)  Someone reading English
language docs and seeing a "WIN" character set might naturally assume that
it is the English Windows character set.  (Which BTW is not currently
supported by PG for conversions.)

Some more examples that might improve clarity:

 LATIN5 should say "Turkish"

 LATIN6 should say "Nordic"

 ALT and KOI8 should say "Cyrillic"   (or Russian)