International SQL-Ledger Network Association

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===== Convert PostgreSQL database from SQL_ASCII to UTF8 =====

Login to your server as "root" and install the 'Recode' tool. In Linux Debian you do this by typing:
     apt-get install recode
Then switch to the "postgres" account:
     su postgres
Now start by creating a dump of your SQL_ASCII database:

     pg_dump SQL_ASCII_database_name > SQL_ASCII_database_dump.sql
Next check content of your file by typing:

    file SQL_ASCII_database_dump.sql
You should get the following output:    
    SQL_ASCII_database_dump.sql: ISO-8859 text
Then you convert your ISO-8859 or CP1250 file to UTF8 by typing these two commands:

    cat SQL_ASCII_database_dump.sql | recode iso-8859-1..u8 > UTF8_database_dump.sql
    
    iconv -f CP1250 -t UTF-8 -c <Non-ISO-extended-ASCII-FILE.sql >UTF8_database_dump.sql
Check the result by typing:

    file UTF8_database_dump.sql
You should now get the following output: 

    UTF8_database_dump.sql: UTF-8 Unicode text
Now open the new UTF8_database_dump.sql file with your favourite editor and change the line:
    SET client_encoding = 'SQL_ASCII';
to:
    SET client_encoding = 'UTF8';
Create a new database:
    createdb new_UTF8_database_name
And import the UTF8_database_dump.sql
    psql new_UTF8_database_name < UTF8_database_dump.sql
That's it!