r> Thanks for help!

>> I still don't understand why you allways have to specify the
>> characterset, defaulting to the charset a database is in when not
>> specified looks like a very natural option to me.

It is interesting to read how IC handles this:
http://www.aoindustries.com/docs/interclient/help/icCharacters.html

By the way, soon I'll make some tests about this conversions. I'll use
Delphi, because with that really low-level methods can be accessed
easily.

r> According to Firebird/InterBase API, if you do not specify charset in
r> DPB (database parameters buffer), it is defaulted to NONE by database
r> server. And if you have some non-NONE columns, getting/setting data
r> there will cause server to perform transliteration.

The link above says no transliteration is performed when NONE is set,
but I will check it :)

r> Also I do not know if there's any way to get database charset
r> before making a connection.

I'll try to check this.

Best wishes,
Daniel