change the Unicode datatype NVarchar to Varchar

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change the Unicode datatype NVarchar to Varchar

l_inda

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Points: 35
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December 9, 2007 at 6:00 am

#62892

is there any way to change the Unicode datatype NVarchar to Varchar?

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Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 741285 More actions · Answer 1

varchar is not Unicode.

You can change the data type, but any unicode data would be lost or cause errors during the conversion. Only the N data types (ntext, nvarchar, nchar) accept Unicode data.

l_inda SSC Rookie Points: 35 More actions · Answer 2

I know that varchar is using ASCII. And just want to know if there is way for conversion because using cast is not correct. Thanks!

Sergiy SSC Guru Points: 110209 More actions · Answer 3

Why CAST is not correct?

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l_inda SSC Rookie Points: 35 More actions · Answer 4

l_inda

SSC Rookie

Points: 35

December 10, 2007 at 5:39 am

#758541

use cast will result in ???

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 741285 More actions · Answer 5

CAST is not a translater. Meaning if you have a Japanese kanji character in Unicode, SQL Server has no way to CAST that to varchar. You're asking to somehow translate two bytes into one and there are no rules for that.

If you store a "ABC" in Unicode (NVARCHAR) and CAST that to VARCHAR, it will work because the top byte is all zeros. CAST works. If there is data from a non-ASCII character set in the upper byte, you CANNOT cast it.

CAST works fine if you are storing ASCII characters in the Nvarchar and just want to change the column type.