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FAQ - What is the default character encoding for Aerospike?
Detail
On a relational database, for string fields, there is the concept of character encoding which defines the manner in which characters are stored within the database. The encoding can refer to a specific code page or the encoding of Unicode used. What is the default encoding for an Aerospike database?
Answer
The Aerospike cluster stores strings, by default, as UTF-8 but the conversion is handled within the client library when data is converted into Aerospike internal datatypes. The key difference to a more traditional database system is that, whereas in a more traditional system the client and server encodings must match, within Aerospike the client library handles any necessary conversion implicitly. In effect the encoding of the database is simply an internal implementation detail. The key information is what the client does with that data and this is left to the user to define according to their needs.
Notes
- A full reference of datatypes supported by the Aerospike server can be found here.
- Data type handling within client libraries is described here.
- UTF-8 encoding of Unicode described in detail here.
Keywords
AEROSPIKE CODE PAGE ENCODING DEFAULT UTF-8
Timestamp
April 2020