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>P.S.: After all, who dare to use collate sequences other than machine?

Bela,

I still dare! Let me explain you how. First, on my tables, everything is now MACHINE, no question about it! But I am working mostly with views. So, when the user has entered one or more search parameters, I present him the resulting data set in grid format. I index my views, and when needed use the GENERAL collating sequence. Since this is only a subset of data, the time penalty is not important. And I don't use these indexes for anything else, so no error either.

José