SQL Server Collation Name (Transact-SQL)

Is a single string that specifies the collation name for a SQL Server collation.

SQL Server supports Windows collations. SQL Server also supports a limited number (<80) of collations called SQL Server collations which were developed before SQL Server supported Windows collations. SQL Server collations are still supported for backward compatibility, but should not be used for new development work. For more information about Windows collations, see Windows Collation Name (Transact-SQL).

Topic link icon Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions

Syntax

<SQL_collation_name> :: =  
     SQL_SortRules[_Pref]_CPCodepage_<ComparisonStyle>

<ComparisonStyle> ::= 
    _CaseSensitivity_AccentSensitivity | _BIN

Arguments

  • SortRules
    A string identifying the alphabet or language whose sorting rules are applied when dictionary sorting is specified. Examples are Latin1_General or Polish.

  • Pref
    Specifies uppercase preference. Even if comparison is case-insensitive, the uppercase version of a letter sorts before the lowercase version, when there is no other distinction.

  • Codepage
    Specifies a one- to four-digit number that identifies the code page used by the collation. CP1 specifies code page 1252, for all other code pages the complete code page number is specified. For example, CP1251 specifies code page 1251 and CP850 specifies code page 850.

  • CaseSensitivity
    CI specifies case-insensitive, CS specifies case-sensitive.

  • AccentSensitivity
    AI specifies accent-insensitive, AS specifies accent-sensitive.

  • BIN
    Specifies the binary sort order to be used.

Remarks

To list the SQL Server collations supported by your server, execute the following query.

SELECT * FROM sys.fn_helpcollations() 
WHERE name LIKE 'SQL%';

1For Sort Order ID 80, use any of the Window collations with the code page of 1250, and binary order. For example: Albanian_BIN, Croatian_BIN, Czech_BIN, Romanian_BIN, Slovak_BIN, Slovenian_BIN.

See Also

Reference

ALTER TABLE (Transact-SQL)

Constants (Transact-SQL)

CREATE DATABASE (Transact-SQL)

CREATE TABLE (Transact-SQL)

DECLARE @local\_variable (Transact-SQL)

table (Transact-SQL)

sys.fn_helpcollations (Transact-SQL)