How to choose collation of SQL Server database

What if I want to use database to store different groups of special characters, how开发者_开发问答 do I choose which collation to use? For example, if I set collation to Croatian and want to use Russian cyrillic, japanese characters except croatian special characters - which collation should I use?

Thanks, Ilija

• You'd use nvarchar to store the data
• COLLATION defines sorting and comparing

That means you can store Croatian, Russian and Japanese in the same column.

But when you want to compare (WHERE MyColumn = @foo) or sort (ORDER BY MyColumn) you'll not get what you expect because of the collation.

However, you can use the COLLATE clause to change it if needed. eg ORDER BY MyColumn COLLATE Japanese_something

I'd go for your most common option that covers most of your data. MSDN has this maybe useful article