ECPG and server datatypes vs client representations.

Hi,

I have an embedded application retrieving data from a postgres database using the ECPG client interface. One process acts as an intermediary for other tasks for r/w operations.

When the the pg interface task retrieves a row into a sql descriptor and inspects the column types for a declared Boolean field, The Client is given a string type with data value of 't'/'f'. Why is it (ECPGt_char) rather then ECPGt_bool ?
Very human friendly but I have a machine making decisions.
If I pass this column/data along as strings the other tasks are left to do less efficient comparisons to 't' or 'f' to asses a flag.

I suppose I could declare it an int column with a range of 1 or 0.

Is there anything more elegant ?

I am new to database programming and postgres.
( Any good postgres programming best practice guides out there ? )

Tnx

Dave