SQL Server search in nvarchar & ntext

Question

I'm using SQL Server 2008 as my database engine in a VS2010, C# ASP.NET web app. My project is Farsi (Persian) so I've used nvarchar and ntext as my data types.

I use following query to find rows from my database but nothing is returned, while I have a row with the specified keyword. Of course my keyword is in Persian (unicode).

What is going wrong here? Is it because of using Farsi language? How can I search in nvarchar and ntext columns containing unicode characters?

myCommand = new SqlCommand("select * from tblArticle where name LIKE '%" + txtSearch.Text + "%'", SQLConnection);

Answer 1

You should use the N' prefix to indicate that you're searching for a Unicode string:

SELECT * FROM dbo.tblArticle WHERE name LIKE N'%......%'

Otherwise, you're converting your search string back to non-Unicode and then searching....

Answer 2

You must use COLLATE Latin1_General_BIN2 to get results. Works for Amharic for Ethiopians.

Select * From YourTableName where ColNameYouSearch LIKE N'%YourSerchCriteria%' COLLATE Latin1_General_BIN2"

Answer 3

I am not familiar with C# ASP.NET, but using nvarchar or ntext shouldn't make any difference in query type. I am wandering you are only assigning your query command to a variable and not executing it.. should you do something like myCommand.execute() ?