sql server 2012 express do not understand Russian letters

Question

I have DB which is working with Russian text however when i run queries it shows me this. Database will used by Russians and it has to show Russian text properly!

Answer 1

Are you sure the data has been stored in the database correctly? How do you know?

Make sure that the column has a proper collation, that it is defined as nvarchar and that inserts of string literals are prefixed with N. For example, these are not the same:

INSERT dbo.table(column) SELECT 'foo';
INSERT dbo.table(column) SELECT N'foo';

As an example:

USE tempdb;
GO

CREATE TABLE dbo.foo
(
  ID INT PRIMARY KEY,
  bar NVARCHAR(32) COLLATE SQL_Ukrainian_CP1251_CI_AS
);

INSERT dbo.foo SELECT 1,'АБВГДЕЖЅZЗИІКЛ';
INSERT dbo.foo SELECT 2,N'АБВГДЕЖЅZЗИІКЛ';

SELECT ID, bar FROM dbo.foo;
GO
DROP TABLE dbo.foo;

Results:

ID    bar
----  --------------
1     ????????Z?????
2     АБВГДЕЖЅZЗИІКЛ

And to show how this affects your insert statement, your string is missing the N prefix:

SELECT
  CONVERT(NVARCHAR(32), 'Иванов'),
  CONVERT(NVARCHAR(32), N'Иванов');

Results:

------    ------
??????    Иванов

So, prefix your Unicode strings with N'a prefix' or lose data.