Hello,

We have a database with ISO8859-1 default charset (all field are in
ISO8859-1)

from some years ago, we store UTF8 string in all the ISO8859-1
field !

so for now :
We still connected to the database using ISO8859-1 Charset, but we
store (or receive) ONLY UTF8 string ...

now my question :

1/ Can i continue to work like this ? i understand than sorting
string in the database is not very efficient in this way but for now
we don't really miss this functionnality ... anything else i forget ?

2/ How to move all the database (and all the already created table
and fields) in default UTF8 charset ?

3/ if we work in default UTF8 charset, does it's mean than the size
of the varchar field will grow ? I explain, you know than UTF8 use
more than one char to store non ASCII char, so setting : MyField
VARCHAR (20) will create a field of 20 CHAR or something like 60
CHAR ?

4/ is the performance of the UTF8 database will be slower than the
ISO8859-1 database ?

5/ As we just need UTF8 string, is it possible to connect to the UTF8
database and continue to send and receive only UTF8 string (no
conversion on the string to local charset or widestring)

Thanks by advance
stephane