Hi,
I come from the "dark side" php/mysql and there often problems with
character sets (utf-8, latin...) and storing data in datebase.

Exists in the world of dot.net and ms-sql-server similiar problems?

To precise: I have to store xml-data in database. Maybe its better to
encode (like base64) the strings?

Perhaps there are some links to read?

Thanks.

klaus.

You do not need to do any encoding. If you are using SQL Server 2000 then
you can use the NVARCHAR data type (which supports Unicode characters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode) to store the XML.

SQL Server 2005 added native support for XML data type, which will makes it
the natural choice for storing XML:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345117.aspx
http://www.code-magazine.com/Article...uickid=0605081

HTH,

Plamen Ratchev
http://www.SQLStudio.com

Klaus Herzberg (klausherzberg@gmail.com) writes:
> I come from the "dark side" php/mysql and there often problems with
> character sets (utf-8, latin...) and storing data in datebase.
>
> Exists in the world of dot.net and ms-sql-server similiar problems?

Character conversion is always a problem, if you don't do it right. :-)

> To precise: I have to store xml-data in database. Maybe its better to
> encode (like base64) the strings?

No, that is a not a good idea. SQL Server supports Unicode, and there is
also a native xml type (in SQL 2005). What you should be aware of that
SQL Server does not support UTF-8, but always store Unicode data in
UTF-16.

For character data you should use nchar/nvarchar which is Unicode
and not char/varchar which is the local 8-bit set.

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...ads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx

thank you for help.