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Collation Dialog Box (Visual Database Tools)

This dialog box lets you specify a collation sequence for the column. A column's collation sequence is used in any operation that compares values of the column to another column or to constant values. It also affects the behavior of some string functions, such as SUBSTRING and CHARINDEX. For a complete list of the effects of a column's collation setting, see the SQL Server documentation.

Note

This dialog box is only available when you are working with SQL Server 2000 or later.

This dialog box appears:

  • If you enter an invalid collation name in the Collation field on the Column Properties tab.

  • If you click in the Collation field on the Column Properties tab, and then click the ellipsis button (…) to the right of the field.

Options

  • SQL Collation
    Choose among the collation sequences defined by SQL Server from the drop-down list.

  • Windows Collation
    Choose among the collation sequences defined by Windows from the drop-down list.

  • Binary Sort
    Use the binary codes of character values for comparisons. If you select this option, certain alphabetic comparison options become unavailable. For example, case-insensitive comparisons become unavailable because uppercase letters and lowercase letters have different binary encodings. Applies only if you select Windows collation.

  • Dictionary Sort
    Use alphabetic comparison options. Applies only if you select Windows collation. The alphabetic comparisons options are:

    • Case Sensitive   Select this if you want comparisons to consider uppercase and lowercase letters to be unequal.

    • Accent Sensitive   Select this if you want comparisons to consider accented and unaccented letters to be unequal. If you select this, comparisons will also consider differently accented letters to be unequal.

    • Kana Sensitive   Select this if you want comparisons to consider katakana and hiragana Japanese syllables to be unequal.

    • Width Sensitive   Select this if you want comparisons to consider half-width and full-width characters to be unequal.

  • Restore Default Button
    Apply the default collation sequence for the database to the column.