Handling unicode characters that aren't displayed correctly in SQL query

Question

Here is the SQL query:

DECLARE @objname nvarchar(255)
set @objname=\'漢字\'
select @objname

When I run this query in Microsoft SQL Server Managem

Answer 1

You should use this:

DECLARE @objname nvarchar(255)
set @objname = N'漢字'
select @objname

Answer 2

NVarchar variable are denoted by N'<Value> so it would be

DECLARE @objname nvarchar(255)
set @objname=N'漢字'
select @objname

Now the output will be 漢字 as it has been set. Run above code.

Answer 3

Adding some context around the other answers:

You need to declare your string assignment using the N prefix (the N stands for "National Character") as you need to explicitly say you are passing a string containing unicode characters here (or an nchar, ntext etc if you were using those).

Microsoft's description is

Prefix a Unicode character string constants with the letter N to signal UCS-2 or UTF-16 input, depending on whether an SC collation is used or not. Without the N prefix, the string is converted to the default code page of the database that may not recognize certain characters. Starting with SQL Server 2019 preview, when a UTF-8 enabled collation is used, the default code page is capable of storing UNICODE UTF-8 character set.

So your assignment will as per other answers be set @objname = N'漢字'

You should also be aware to use the prefix in other instances, such as where clauses when filtering on nvarchar columns, otherwise you can encounter issues such as performance degradation from implicit conversions.