The Real MTCS SQL Server 2008 Exam 70/432 Prep Kit- P54: Congratulations on your journey to become certified in SQL Server 2008. This book will help prepare you for your exam and give you a practical view of working with SQL Server 2008. | Maintaining Your Database Chapter 7 247 determines the suggested default collation If you are performing a fresh install . SQL Server has never been installed previously on this computer the most appropriate collation based on the Windows regional settings will be suggested. Figure Selecting a Default Server Collation during Installation A collation defines the bit pattern that represents each character in the data set. Usually the collation name starts with the language or character set for example Latin1_ Thai100_ Arabic100_. The collation also defines the following rules regarding data comparison and sorting Case sensitivity This option defines if the comparison or sort is case sensitive. For example in a case sensitive comparison Banana banana will return true. When sorted banana will always come before Banana . Accent sensitivity This option defines if the comparison is accent sensitive. For example in an accent sensitive comparison Valentine will not be equal to Valentine . 248 Chapter 7 Maintaining Your Database Kanatype sensitivity This option defines if the comparison is sensitive to the type of Japanese kana characters used. Two types of kana characters are available Hiragana and Katakana. When a comparison is kana-insensitive SQL Server will consider equivalent Hiragana and Katakana characters as equal for sorting purposes. Width sensitivity This option defines if the comparison treats characters represented as a single byte as equivalent to the same character represented as a double byte. Suffixes _CS _AS _KS and _WS are used in collation set names to show that the collation is case accent kana or width sensitive. Alternatively CI AI KI and WI can be used for case accent kana or width insensitive collations. Unless specifically specified width insensitivity and kanatype insensitivity is assumed. For example the collation Latin1_General _CI_AS_KS_WS is case-insensitive accent-sensitive kanatype-sensitive and width-sensitive. As another example the
