What's with the N?

[rarich01]

Every time I have Enterprise Manager auto-generate a Script for one of the databases, it always places an 'N' in front of some the object names:

Eg.: Here's a sample piece.

exec sp_dboption N'Northwind', N'auto update statistics', N'true'
GO

if exists (select * from dbo.sysobjects where id = object_id(N'[dbo].[FK_tblBatchPayStatements_tblBatches]') ....

I'm wondering why SQL Server does this, and what it means?

Any ideas?

 

[SQLSister]

It means that the datatype is a unicode data type. in other words, it is using an nvarchar instead of a varchar datatype or an nchar or ntext vice char or text.

Howsomever, if you write the code yourself you can omit these Ns and the query will still run.