May 6, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Hello, I was wondering if there is a suggested/documented way to upgrade an existing database from non UTF to UTF? Is it as easy as just changing a column from CHAR to a NCHAR data type? If so is there a scripts to dynamically generate alter table statements for each column?
Thank you
Best Regards,
~David
May 6, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Hi David
Basically it is as simple as you thought. But you have to remember:
* The storage size of the columns grows to twice size
* If you have indexes on the columns you have first to remove and recreate them
* If you have constraints you have to remove and recreate
* If your tables are large it takes its time
Greets
Flo
May 6, 2009 at 12:41 pm
SQL Server uses UCS-2 instead of UTF and it depends on the langauge, if it is right to left language or east Asian like Chinese, Japanese and Korean, then there is Greek in Europe. These langauges require correct collation with unicode column definition. So if any of the above is your language then you need to do more work.
The reason the latin alphabet collation may not give you Chinese, Japanese and Korean because these languages uses alphabet that is at least 2000 characters. So start with the two links below.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143508.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms144250.aspx
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie
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