SQLServerCentral Article

Concatenating Rows

Often in database design we store different values in rows to take advantage of a normalized design. However many times we need to combine multiple rows of data into one row for a report of some sort. New author Carl P. Anderson brings us some interesting T-SQL code to accomplish this.

SQLServerCentral Editorial

SLA Contracts

This Friday Steve Jones talks about the commitments and contracts that you may have with your customers. Do you know what they are? Is the contract explicitly spelled out? Take this Friday's poll and share your answer with everyone else.

External Article

Look-up Tables in SQL

Lookup tables can be a force for good in a relational database. Whereas the 'One True Lookup Table' remains a classic of bad database design, an auxiliary table that holds static data, and is used to lookup values, still has powerful magic. Joe Celko explains....

Technical Article

T-SQL Quiz 2011

The 2011 edition of MVP Jacob Sebastian's T-SQL Quiz is underway. You can take part in the quiz each day, submitting your answers for the chance to show off your knowledge and perhaps win some prizes.

Blogs

Flyway Tips: AI Deployment Script Descriptions

By

With the AI push being everywhere, Redgate is no exception. We’ve been getting requests,...

A New Word: Fawtle

By

fawtle – n. a weird little flaw built into your partner that somehow only...

Post-quantum key exchange – Insurance policy for your packets

By

AWS recently added support for Post-Quantum Key Exchange for TLS in Application Load Balancer...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Where Your Value Separates You from Others

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Where Your Value Separates You...

Fixing the Error

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fixing the Error

T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Encoding Functions

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Fixing the Error

On SQL Server 2025, I have a database that has this collation: SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. I decide I want to run this code:

SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C*3068 and good night', '*') AS 'A Classic';
I get this error:Msg 9844, Level 16, State 4, Line 24 The char/varchar input type uses an unsupported collation. Only a UTF8 collation is supported with char/varchar input type in UNISTR function.What is the easiest way to fix this error?

See possible answers