Difference Between Varchar and Nvarchar

The key difference between varchar and nvarchar is the way they are stored, varchar is stored as regular 8-bit data(1 byte per character) and nvarchar stores data at 2 bytes per character. Due to this reason, nvarchar can hold upto 4000 characters and it takes double the space as SQL varchar.

1. What is difference between char varchar and Nvarchar?
2. What does Nvarchar mean in SQL?
3. When should I use Nvarchar in SQL Server?
4. What is Nvarchar data type?
5. Which is best varchar or Nvarchar?
6. Should I use varchar or char?
7. Is it bad to use Nvarchar Max?
8. Is it bad to use varchar Max?
9. What does Nvarchar 255 mean?
10. What is varchar example?
11. What does N in Nvarchar stand for?
12. What does varchar 20 mean?

What is difference between char varchar and Nvarchar?

char and varchar cannot store Unicode characters. char and nchar are fixed-length which will reserve storage space for number of characters you specify even if you don't use up all that space. varchar and nvarchar are variable-length which will only use up spaces for the characters you store.

What does Nvarchar mean in SQL?

nvarchar [ ( n | max ) ] Variable-size string data. n defines the string size in byte-pairs and can be a value from 1 through 4,000. max indicates that the maximum storage size is 2^30-1 characters (2 GB). The storage size is two times n bytes + 2 bytes.

When should I use Nvarchar in SQL Server?

The real reason you want to use NVARCHAR is when you have different languages in the same column, you need to address the columns in T-SQL without decoding, you want to be able to see the data "natively" in SSMS, or you want to standardize on Unicode.

What is Nvarchar data type?

The NVARCHAR data type stores strings of varying lengths. The string can include digits, symbols, and both single-byte and (in some locales) multibyte characters. The main difference between VARCHAR and NVARCHAR data types is the collation order. ... No more than 195 columns of the same table can be NVARCHAR data types.

Which is best varchar or Nvarchar?

If your database going to is store multilingual data you should use the nvarchar datatype instead varchar. Also, nvarchar takes twice as much space as varchar data. If your database will not be storing multilingual data you should use the varchar datatype instead.

Should I use varchar or char?

If you use char or varchar, we recommend to: Use char when the sizes of the column data entries are consistent. Use varchar when the sizes of the column data entries vary considerably. Use varchar(max) when the sizes of the column data entries vary considerably, and the string length might exceed 8,000 bytes.

Is it bad to use Nvarchar Max?

You cannot create an index on an nvarchar(MAX) column. You can use full-text indexing, but you cannot create an index on the column to improve query performance. For me, this seals the deal...it is a definite disadvantage to always use nvarchar(MAX).

Is it bad to use varchar Max?

It is always preferable to use varchar(N), and if you know the size will not vary, then char(N). ... In addition, varchar(max) prevents the ability to perform online indexes against the entire table which contains the varchar(max) field. This will significantly impact performance of your system.

What does Nvarchar 255 mean?

nvarchar(255) (in SQL Server) stores 255 Unicode characters (in 510 bytes plus overhead). ... In this case, ordinary ASCII data uses only 1 byte per character so you don't have the double-byte overheads.

What is varchar example?

VARCHAR is a variable length string data type, so it holds only the characters you assign to it. VARCHAR takes up 1 byte per character, + 2 bytes to hold length information. For example, if you set a VARCHAR(100) data type = 'Jen', then it would take up 3 bytes (for J, E, and N) plus 2 bytes, or 5 bytes in all.

What does N in Nvarchar stand for?

It's declaring the string as nvarchar data type, rather than varchar. You may have seen Transact-SQL code that passes strings around using an N prefix. This denotes that the subsequent string is in Unicode (the N actually stands for National language character set).

What does varchar 20 mean?

The data type of varchar is Variable-length with non-Unicode character data. The storage size is the actual length of data entered + 2 bytes. • For varchar (20): The max storage size is: 20*1 byte +2 bytes=22 bytes; •