> Client has to determine number of characters by dividing buffer size
> with "max bytes per character". For char(2) data in utf8, buffer size
> will be 8 byte, and max bytes per character is 4, so the data should eb
> trimmed to 2 characters (codepoints).

It is not an easy task if you have larger strings. Client library
knows only length of data in bytes (without trailing blanks - they are
cut off by server to save network traffic). So, if you have field
CHAR(100) (size of buffer = 400 bytes) and receive from server piece of
data with length of 10 bytes, how many spaces you must add to the tail?
Remember, that these 10 bytes may be 10 ASCII characters or 5 non-ASCII
characters or 2 ancient Egypt hieroglyphs + 1 character from base plane.
The task is easier for components or external driver which are aware
of Unicode - they can transform the data into UCS4 and then cut it to
100 characters, but for fbclient this mission is impossible for now.

SY, SD.