MS SQL Server Concepts and Programming Question:

What Happens When Unicode Strings Concatenate with Non-Unicode Strings?

Tweet Share WhatsApp

Answer:

If a Unicode string NVARCHAR is concatenated with a non-Unicode string VARCHAR, SQL Server will implicitly convert the non-Unicode string to Unicode string for concatenation.

DECLARE @regcode VARCHAR(40);
DECLARE @unicode NVARCHAR(40);
SET @regcode = 'Some Unicode characters: '
SET @unicode = NCHAR(9733)+NCHAR(9734)+NCHAR(9792)
+NCHAR(9794);
SELECT @regcode + @unicode;
SELECT DATALENGTH(@regcode);
SELECT DATALENGTH(@unicode);
SELECT DATALENGTH(@regcode + @unicode);
Some Unicode characters: ????
25
8
58

Note that the non-Unicode string @regcode has been converted to a Unicode string. The number of bytes of @regcode changed from 25 to 50. With 8 bytes from @unicode, the number of bytes of the concatenated string becomes 58.

Download MS SQL Server PDF Read All 394 MS SQL Server Questions
Previous QuestionNext Question
How To Concatenate Two Character Strings Together?How To Convert a Unicode Strings to Non-Unicode Strings?