Normalize unicode string in SQL Server?

Question

Is there a function in SQL Server to normalize a unicode string? e.g.

UPDATE Orders SET Notes = NormalizeString(Notes, \'FormC\')

Unicode

Answer 1

In the absence of an in-built solution in SQL Server and if you don't want to write a C# function, you could use the translate function to do that manually as such:

select translate(last_name, 'éêëèàäçïîìôöòûù', 'eeeeaaciiiooouu') from employees

You can also use the following solution from: https://coderwall.com/p/a6koxq/how-to-remove-diacritics-in-sql-server

The easiest way to remove diacritics from a string in SQL Server is to collate the string using a character set that does not include diacritics, such as :

SELECT 'àéêöhello!' Collate SQL_Latin1_General_CP1253_CI_AI

This will output:

aeeohello!

This work only if you are not using a unicode string, so cast it as varchar first if you have a unicode string.