Querying a SQL Server 2008 table to find values in a column containing Unicode characters

Question

I\'ve run into a problem in a project I\'m working on: some of the string values in a specific SQL Server 2008 table column contain Unicode characters. For example, instead

Answer 1

One way you can do it is to see which rows no longer equal themselves when converted to a datatype that doesn't support unicode.

CREATE TABLE myStrings (
    string nvarchar(max) not null
)

INSERT INTO myStrings (string)
SELECT 'This is not unicode' union all
SELECT 'This has '+nchar(500)+' unicode' union all
SELECT 'This also does not have unicode' union all
SELECT 'This has lots of unicode '+nchar(600)+nchar(700)+nchar(800)+'!'

SELECT cast(string as varchar)
FROM myStrings

SELECT *
FROM myStrings
WHERE cast(cast(string as varchar(max)) as nvarchar(max)) <> string