Getting ??? after storing data in Hindi, Tamil or Gujarati? Here are the basic rules to follow to keep many languages in the same table.
Unicode Lost: Finding Question Marks Left by varchar Conversion
Customer names turn into question marks, and an nvarchar column does not bring them back. Here is how it happens and how to repair it.
UNISTR and Unicode Escapes in SQL Server 2025
Build Unicode strings with UNISTR in SQL Server 2025, compare NCHAR, and preserve accented letters, Hindi text, and emoji in storage.
MySQL Habits That Trip Up Developers Moving to SQL Server
Replace six MySQL habits with SQL Server equivalents for LIMIT, AUTO_INCREMENT, quoting, GROUP BY, duplicate inserts, and collations.
Storing Hash Values: binary(32) or a 64-Character Hex String
A hex string is just a printed hash, and it costs twice the space. Here is the round trip, the index sizes and the traps.
Fixing Collation Conflicts Between tempdb and Your Database
Fix tempdb collation conflicts with DATABASE_DEFAULT, compare a join-level COLLATE, and inspect contained-database behavior.
Effect of Collation on Result Sets in SQL Server
The effect of collation on result sets is easy to see once you run the same query against two collations. This post builds a small demo and shows how sorting, comparing and grouping change. It also explains collation conflicts, including the one temp tables cause.