PostgreSQL 8.3.7: soundex function returns UTF-16 characters

From: Frans <frans(at)geodan(dot)nl>
To: pgsql-bugs(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: PostgreSQL 8.3.7: soundex function returns UTF-16 characters
Date: 2009-04-06 15:07:38
Message-ID: 49DA1ABA.8090900@geodan.nl
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Hello,

We have just discovered a problem with the soundex function in
PostgreSQL 8.3.7. The problem is easy to reproduce. The following query
returns the ASCII code of the soundex representation of the Greek letter Pi:

select ascii (soundex('Π'));

In PostgreSQL 8.2.6 the result would be 0 (character null). In
PostgreSQL 8.3.7 the return value is 944, which is the UTF-16 code of
this letter. Because PostgreSQL does not support UTF-16, this behaviour
causes problems when the return values from the soundex function are
stored in a database column. For instance, creating an index on such a
column or doing VACUUM FULL on the table results in errors like:

ERROR: could not convert string to UTF-16

Regards,
Frans

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