SQL Server NCHAR

NCHAR data type is used to store Unicode string data of fixed-length.

• NCHAR data type is used to store Unicode string data of fixed-length.
• It stores data at 2 byte per character.
• It supports up to 4000 characters.

Syntax
nchar(n)

n specify the string length that ranges from 1 to 4000. Default value for n is 1.

Let’s look at an example of using NCHAR data type in SQL Server.

Data Storage Vs Length

In following T- SQL Statement, declared a variable @str of datatype nchar of size 15.

DECLARE @Str NCHAR(15) 

SET @Str = 'Microsoft'

SELECT @Str AS Strtext, 
DATALENGTH(@Str) AS StrText_OccupiedLength ,

LEN(@Str) AS StrText_length

As nchar has fixed-length and takes 2 bytes per character to store the data, so it takes 30 bytes to store value ‘microsoft’, even though the length of ‘microsoft’ is 9 .

So, the data storage length of characters will be the fixed-length of variable @str * 2 bytes (15 *2) =30.

Using NCHAR to store a unicode data

NCHAR can store Unicode data, lets store the Hindi language text to @str variable of type nchar.

Note: Always make sure that, you prefix Unicode string literals with an N prefix.

DECLARE @Str NCHAR(15)

SET @Str = N'माइक्रोसॉफ्ट'

SELECT @Str AS Strtext, DATALENGTH(@Str) AS StrText_OccupiedLength ,
LEN(@Str) AS StrText_length

You can see, it can store a Unicode data as well that can be seen in strtext column if result set.

Also Read..

SQL Server VARCHAR VS NVARCHAR

SQL Server CHAR VS NCHAR