--- "pavel_menshchikov" <mpn2001@y...> wrote:

> Could you tell me please what is the difference using Unicode
> and "common" character sets/collations?

Unicode supports all characters of all living scripts of the world
(and some old).

A common narrow character set supports 256 (or more likely 192)
characters.

So, without much guessing, using Unicode will waste performance
and storage space, if your application can do with a
supported narrow chaarcter set.

> Some time ago I created the program, which worked quite well with
> Unicode (I mean inserting and updating). But simple select statement
> with "like '%<string_with_non-digit_chars>'" clause made the FB/IB
> server down (v. 1.0.3 and 6.0 respectivly).

Test again against FB 1.5.1 and file bug, if it still crashes.

Regards,
Peter Jacobi