Different language words stored in the same table and column

  • Guys,

    I am using MSSQL Server 2000. My current version is shown below:

    Microsoft SQL Server 2000 - 8.00.2040 (Intel X86) May 13 2005 18:33:17 Copyright (c) 1988-2003 Microsoft Corporation Enterprise Edition on Windows NT 5.2 (Build 3790: Service Pack 1)

    Is it possible to store the words of many different languages in the same table and same column?

    For example, if I have a table with a column called 'WORD', and I want to store the words in English, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, and Russian, how could I do that? Is it possible to do?

    Would having datatype as NVARCHAR be sufficient? What about table and/or column COLLATION?

    Thanks a lot in advance!

  • Yes, data types NCHAR and NVARCHAR would allow you to store most any language. Sorting/collations are more complicated though.

    [font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
    Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc.
    [/font]
    [font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]

  • Thank you for the information.

    So does this mean that I don't need to worry about COLLATION in general? What does that affect?

  • No, it means that there is no easy fix for that. Sorting/Collation is language & alphabet specific, so you will want a different collation for each different language that you store in a field and that is complicated to implement.

    [font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
    Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc.
    [/font]
    [font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]

  • Since COLLATION is column specific, is it even possible to have a different collation per language, if the same column is used by all?

    Thank you!

  • I think that you would have you redefine the data after you pulled it out of the table/column by running it through a view or other virtual column that partitoned it based on language. Real messy, but possible.

    [font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
    Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc.
    [/font]
    [font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]

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