#nvarchar

Date Formatting Examples in SQL Server

There are various ways to display and store dates in SQL Server. You can easily use the FORMAT function get the date value into a format most useful for your query results, but with great flexibility often comes confusion. It is helpful to see a few simple examples. In this article from Greg Owen, we see several examples of ways to display the current date and time.

–Get Current Date and Time

s…

Using “N” before strings in SQL Server

When you are working with queries and commands Microsoft SQL Server or looking at documentation for arguments in core functions, often you’ll see an “N” before a quotes string, like this:

N'string content'

As you may know, the N encodes the string as Unicode (specifically, UTF-16in SQL Server’s case). The “N” stands for “national,” since using it ensures that strings in different national…

Fixed What are the main performance differences between varchar and nvarchar SQL Server data types? #dev #it #asnwer

What are the main performance differences between varchar and nvarchar SQL Server data types?

I’m working on a database for a small web app at my school using SQL Server 2005. I see a couple of schools of thought on the issue of varchar vs nvarchar:

Use varchar unless you deal with a lot of internationalized data, then use nvarchar.

Just use nvarchar for everything.

I’m beginning to see the…

How to: nvarchar(max) vs NText

nvarchar(max) vs NText

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the nvarchar(max) vs. NText data types in SQL Server? I don’t need backward compatibility, so it is fine that nvarchar(max) isn’t supported in older SQL Server releases.

Edit: Apparently the question also applies to TEXT and IMAGE vs. varchar(max) and varbinary(max), for those searching for those data-types later.

Thanks!

A…

Fixed What is the difference between varchar and nvarchar? #dev #it #asnwer

What is the difference between varchar and nvarchar?

Is it just that nvarchar supports multibyte characters? If that is the case, is there really any point, other than storage concerns, to using varchars?

Answer: What is the difference between varchar and nvarchar?

nvarchar stores unicode data while varchar stores ascii data. They function identically but nvarchar takes up twice as much space.

A…