SQL-Server is ignoring my COLLATION when I'm using LIKE operator

Question

I\'m working with Spanish database so when I\'m looking for and \"aeiou\" I can also get \"áéíóú\" or \"AEIOU\" or \"ÁÉÍÓÚ\", in a where clause like this:

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Answer 1

You can use COLLATE, eg.

SELECT * 
FROM TableName
WHERE strData COLLATE Latin1_general_CI_AI = 'perez' COLLATE Latin1_general_CI_AI

both sides must have the same collation.

• SQLFiddle Demo
• SQLFiddle Demo (using LIKE)

Others:

• Selecting a SQL Server Collation

Answer 2

You need to change the collation of the table COLUMN itself.

select collation_name, *
from sys.columns
where object_id = object_id('tblname')
  and name = 'stringdata';

If you're lucky it is as easy as (example)

alter table tblname alter column stringdata varchar(20) collate Modern_Spanish_CI_AS

But if you have constraints and/or schema bound references, it can get complicated.
It can be very difficult to work with a database with mixed collations, so you may want to re-collate all the table columns.