Technical Article

Handling NULL values in SQL Server 2005

In the simplest terms, a NULL value represents an unknown value. It's unknown in the sense that the value is: missing from the system, may not be applicable in the current situation, or might be added later. NULL values are different than any other value and are sometimes hard to compare and handle.

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Opening Day

Today is the opening day for the PASS conference here in Denver and it's kind of exciting. As many of you read this, I've hopefully gotten Simon Galbraith, owner of Red Gate software, and my boss, out here at the ranch shoveling manure. He's anxious to get on the ATV for a ride, so maybe I can work out a deal to reduce my workload 🙂

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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?

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