> You may also ask why to set lc_ctype at all if I want to switch off
> the character translation, as in that case the driver would not use
> encoding at all? Question is right: because if we do not specify the
> lc_ctype, Firebird even don't accept characters like 0xF5. (same
> arithmetic exception)

Well, I just played a little with the 0xF5 character and here's the
results:

If you use WIN1251 encoding (cyrillic though), you do have 0xF5 char
there (it looks the same as 'x' does) and everything is working
perfect (lc_ctype=WIN1251, col definition one of WIN1251,
UNICODE_FSS, NONE).

Same with WIN1252 (lc_ctype=WIN1252, col definition one of WIN1252,
UNICODE_FSS, NONE; however unicode representation is different, but
one can expect this).

And the same with NONE (lc_ctype=NONE, col definition NONE)

Maybe this helps...

Best regards,
Roman Rokytskyy