nchar vs char 1

[columbo2]

Hi all,

When should you use NCHAR?
I know it's for use with non-english characters but even if you are expecting English input should you use it to allow people to enter characters with umlauts or for email colums Can the Char column type store charcters with umlauts or can it only store the base ASCII characters?

Thanks in advance
C

 

[SQLSister]

If you have any characters that are not onethe standard english language keyboard, then char is not the correct data type to use. I personally would be wary fo using char or nchar for any column that does not have a specific required number of characters (like say state 2-charcter abrreviations) because it will store spaces to fill out the char length. So I would consider that you probably need to use nvarchar instead.

"NOTHING is more important in a database than integrity." ESquared