What Is The PostgreSQL Equivalent To SQL Server NVARCHAR ?

Question

If I have fields of NVARCHAR (or NTEXT) data type in a Microsoft SQL Server database, what would be the equivalent data type in a PostgreSQL database?

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure postgres varchar is the same as Oracle/Sybase/MSSQL nvarchar even though it is not explicit in the manual:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/static/datatype-character.html

Encoding conversion functions are here:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/functions-string.html http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/functions-string.html#CONVERSION-NAMES

Example:

create table
nvctest (
utf8fld varchar(12)
);
insert into nvctest
select convert('PostgreSQL' using ascii_to_utf_8);
select * from nvctest;

Also, there is this response to a similar question from a Postgresql rep:

All of our TEXT datatypes are multibyte-capable, provided you've installed PostgreSQL correctly.
This includes: TEXT (recommended) VARCHAR CHAR

Answer 2

It's varchar and text, assuming your database is in UNICODE encoding. If your database is in a non-UNICODE encoding, there is no special datatype that will give you a unicode string - you can store it as a bytea stream, but that will not be a string.

Answer 3

Standard TEXT datatype is perfectly fine for it.