How to create Postgres DB with case insensitive collation

Question

I am using the postgres version 9.4.1 64-bit on windows 7 64-bit. I need to create DB with the setting "case sensitive = OFF" but couldn't make this work. I refereed already many question on SO and other forums as well but even after trying out all those options my DB is still case sensitive and my search queries returns only partial results.

Does any one have success getting this work on windows environment?

Note: I am aware of the ILIKE operator but that option is not going to be considered by Architect team as we have a clear requirements that Database storage should be CASE INSENSITIVE by default. We do ot have any scenarios where we will need case sensitive search.

Answer 1

This may be too late for the original poster, but for completeness, the way to achieve case insensitive behaviour from PostgreSQL is to set a non-deterministic collation. This is only for Postgres 12.

Details are described in docs here. Reproducing relevant portion for completeness:

A collation is either deterministic or nondeterministic. A deterministic collation uses deterministic comparisons, which means that it considers strings to be equal only if they consist of the same byte sequence. Nondeterministic comparison may determine strings to be equal even if they consist of different bytes. Typical situations include case-insensitive comparison, accent-insensitive comparison, as well as comparison of strings in different Unicode normal forms. It is up to the collation provider to actually implement such insensitive comparisons; the deterministic flag only determines whether ties are to be broken using bytewise comparison. See also Unicode Technical Standard 10 for more information on the terminology.

To create a nondeterministic collation, specify the property deterministic = false to CREATE COLLATION, for example:

CREATE COLLATION ndcoll (provider = icu, locale = 'und', deterministic = false);

This example would use the standard Unicode collation in a nondeterministic way. In particular, this would allow strings in different normal forms to be compared correctly. More interesting examples make use of the ICU customization facilities explained above. For example:

CREATE COLLATION case_insensitive (provider = icu, locale = 'und-u-ks-level2', deterministic = false);
CREATE COLLATION ignore_accents (provider = icu, locale = 'und-u-ks-level1-kc-true', deterministic = false);

All standard and predefined collations are deterministic, all user-defined collations are deterministic by default. While nondeterministic collations give a more “correct” behavior, especially when considering the full power of Unicode and its many special cases, they also have some drawbacks. Foremost, their use leads to a performance penalty. Also, certain operations are not possible with nondeterministic collations, such as pattern matching operations. Therefore, they should be used only in cases where they are specifically wanted.

Answer 2

You should take a look at my recent answer here to a related question regarding umlauts.

Basically, the solution involves a "shadow" or "search" column for proper names. Basically, you use an ON INSERT trigger to populate your search column with the field you wish to search modified for your chosen search method - in this example, case insensitive.

The example I gave was using Irish names

Display_Name    Search_name    Address
------------    -----------    -------
Ronan MacGuire  RONAN MCGUIRE  1 Clontarf D1
Ronan McGuire   RONAN MCGUIRE  2 Malahide D2
Rónán Mcguire   RONAN MCGUIRE  3 Mary's terrace D3

Ignore the bits about Mc/Mac, just concentrate on the last Display_Name "Rónán Mcguire" - in the Search_Name column, this is changed to RONAN MCGUIRE - and any search for MCGUIRE will also pick up the second person "Ronan McGuire". This has the advantage of being portable/RDBMS agnostic. Maybe this could be a solution to your problem?