CHAR and NCHAR data types

Question

Hi,
What's the difference between CHAR and NCHAR data types and when do we use them ?

Vulpes · Answer

The ' char(n) ' data type is used for storing fixed length non-unicode strings of length n, where n is between 1 and 8000 bytes. If you don't specify 'n' a default of 1 byte is assumed.
Although it is normally used for storing single byte ANSI strings, non-unicode multi-byte character sets can be used as well (as determined by the collation code page). However, if you're using 2 byte characters, you'll only be able to store a maximum of 4000 characters as 'n' is always measured in bytes.
In contrast, the ' nchar(n) ' data type is used for storing fixed length unicode strings of length n, where n is between 1 and 4000 characters. If you don't specify 'n' a default of 1 character is assumed.