Hi,

> After setting the Client characterset all converts well into
> ISO8859_1.
>
> One question about COLLATE. Is it not possible to define the
> collation order once in stead of setting it for every separate table ?

If you create your database with the default character-set then you can set
the default collate with updating RDB$DEFAULT_COLLATE_NAME, for example :

update RDB$CHARACTER_SETS
set RDB$DEFAULT_COLLATE_NAME = 'DU_NL'
where RDB$CHARACTER_SET_NAME = 'ISO8859_1'

When now creating tables (etc..) without any specified character-set/collate
the defaults are used !
This is how i do it.

NOTE !! After an Backup/Restore you must run this query again, because this
value isn't saved at backup.

Regards,
Arno Brinkman