(last updated: 2024-11-01 @ 01:15 ET / 2024-11-01 @ 05:15 UTC ) On June 4th, 2024, Abhiman Tiwari published a blog post titled, "Announcing UNISTR and || operator in Azure SQL Database – preview". The first half of that post describes a new function, UNISTR (currently only available in Azure SQL Database; haven’t tried Azure… Continue reading The new UNISTR function is well intentioned, but more problematic than beneficial
Tag: Collation
Is the [sysname] SQL Server System Data Type Alias Name Case-Insensitive?
(last updated: 2021-07-05 @ 14:00 EST / 2021-07-05 @ 18:00 UTC ) The sysname data type (in SQL Server) is a system-provided, though not built-in, alias for NVARCHAR(128). This alias is used for nearly all identifiers (i.e. names of tables, columns, indexes, databases, logins, etc.), starting in SQL Server 7.0 (for a full list of… Continue reading Is the [sysname] SQL Server System Data Type Alias Name Case-Insensitive?
SQL Server Collations: What does “CP1” mean in “SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS”?
(last updated: 2021-12-11 @ 18:00 EST / 2021-12-11 @ 23:00 UTC ) Many of us that work with Microsoft SQL Server, especially those of us working on systems with US English as the OS language, or anyone working with SQL Server Express LocalDB (commonly referred to as just “LocalDB”), have had to deal with the… Continue reading SQL Server Collations: What does “CP1” mean in “SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS”?
How Many Bytes Per Character in SQL Server: a Completely Complete Guide
A Completely Complete Guide to how many bytes are used to represent characters in the T-SQL string datatypes
Unicode Escape Sequences Across Various Languages and Platforms (including Supplementary Characters)
Unicode escape sequences across various languages and platforms (including Supplementary Characters), with working examples
Uppercase All String Columns (and in a Single Query!)
Have you ever wanted to uppercase all string columns in a database? Probably not. But, this was still an interesting exercise 🙃
Differences Between the Various Binary Collations (Cultures, Versions, and BIN vs BIN2)
Come explore the actual differences between the seemingly not-so-different binary collations...
What Does the Undocumented UNCOMPRESS Function Do?
Ever notice how IntelliSense in SSMS lists functions that don't work or aren't documented? Here's documentation for one that works: UNCOMPRESS
Beware! Beware of Unintended Changes When Altering Columns!
Beware of big green dragons, er, well, of unexpected changes when changing a column's datatype. You might be unpleasantly surprised! 🙀 Beware!
Native UTF-8 Support in SQL Server 2019: Savior or False Prophet?
An in-depth analysis of the new native UTF-8 support in SQL Server 2019.