Best practise of storing a column which is of string type

Hi,

Hi I am currently using SQL Server 2005.

Whats the difference between nvarchar & varchar datatypes in SQL server and which is opted best to store strings.

Thanks,

Uma Ramiya

nvarchar is used commonly used to store national characters / unicode characters. so if your front end application accepts unicode characters to be stored to your db then you should use nvarchar. if not use varchar instead
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I use ASp.Net 2.0 as front end. In that case what should I use

Thanks,

Uma Ramiya

|||its not dependent on asp.net. it depends on the localization of your application e.g. does your asp.net application can be viewed, transalated and/or accepts inputs with chinese , korean characters, etc. then you should use nvarchar. if you application only stores english characters then use varchar
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If you want to store english (latin based) string then you can use varchar.

If you want to store non-english string (ex. Japanese, Hindi, Tamil etc) then you have to use NVarchar.

Nvarchar uses Unicode (which supports all the alphabets/numbers)

Varchar Uses ASCII CODE (which supports only english alphabets/numbers)

Nvarchar each char occupies 2 Byte

Varchar each char occupies 1 Byte

Nvarchar max length in SQL Server 2000 = 4000

Varchar max length in SQL Server 2005 = 8000

If your app supports (or planned to support on future) Globilization/Localization then use the NVarchar

Otherwise Varchar is more enough..