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SQL Server FAQ - Differences between CHAR and NCHAR

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What Are the Differences between CHAR and NCHAR?

Both CHAR and NCHAR are fixed length data types. But they have the following main differences:

• CHAR stores characters based on the code page with 1 byte per character most of the time.
• NCHAR stores characters using Unicode character set with 2 bytes per character most of the time.
• CHAR(n) specifies a length of n bytes by default.
• NCHAR(n) specifies a length of n characters by default.

(Continued on next topic...)

1. What Is SQL Language?
2. What Is Transact-SQL Language?
3. What Is a Transact-SQL Statement?
4. How To Start and End Transact-SQL Statements?
5. How To Enter Comments in Transact-SQL Statements?
6. What Is a Transact-SQL Statement Batch?
7. What Happens to a Statement Batch If There Is a Compilation Error?
8. How To Use GO Command in "sqlcmd"?
9. How To Create User Messages with PRINT Statements?
10. How Many Categories of Data Types Used by SQL Server?
11. What Are Exact Numeric Data Types?
12. What Are Approximate Numeric Data Types?
13. What Are Date and Time Data Types?
14. What Are Character String Data Types?
15. What Are Unicode Character String Data Types?
16. What Are Binary String Data Types?
17. What Are the Differences between CHAR and NCHAR?
18. What Are the Differences between CHAR and VARCHAR?
19. What Are the Differences between DECIMAL and FLOAT?