SQL Server Collation Name (Transact-SQL)

Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Synapse Analytics Analytics Platform System (PDW) SQL analytics endpoint in Microsoft Fabric Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric

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 syntax conventions

Syntax

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

<ComparisonStyle> ::=
_CaseSensitivity_AccentSensitivity | _BIN

Note

To view Transact-SQL syntax for SQL Server 2014 (12.x) and earlier versions, see Previous versions documentation.

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%';

Note

For 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