SQL Server database field to handle korean and chinese characters

sql-server database internationalization cjk
Alessandro picture Alessandro · Jan 19, 2011 · Viewed 40.3k times · Source

Is it possible to have a field in SQLServer that can store Chinese, Korean and European characters? My Chinese characters just become ?????

The datatype is NVARCHAR as well.

Answer

marc_s picture marc_s · Jan 19, 2011

NVARCHAR is the proper type for this - it stores everything in a 2-byte Unicode.

What you need to pay attention to is when working with NVARCHAR fields in SQL Server Management Studio - you absolutely must use the N'....' prefix in that case!

If you use this:

INSERT INTO dbo.YourTable(NVarcharColumn)
    VALUES('Some Chinese text here')

then SSMS will temporarily convert the string literal you specify into VARCHAR (non-Unicode!) and thus you'll loose any Unicode-encoded characters.

However, if you use:

INSERT INTO dbo.YourTable(NVarcharColumn)
    VALUES(N'Some Chinese text here')

(note the N prefix before the string literal!) then SSMS will handle everything as Unicode all the time, and your Chinese or Korean (or other) special characters should be preserved.

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