What does collation mean?

sql sql-server-2005 tsql mysql
LOVE_KING picture LOVE_KING · Dec 27, 2010 · Viewed 123.4k times · Source

What does collation mean in SQL, and what does it do?

Answer

paxdiablo picture paxdiablo · Dec 27, 2010

Collation can be simply thought of as sort order.

In English (and it's strange cousin, American), collation may be a pretty simple matter consisting of ordering by the ASCII code.

Once you get into those strange European languages with all their accents and other features, collation changes. For example, though the different accented forms of a may exist at disparate code points, they may all need to be sorted as if they were the same letter.

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