| title | setSendStringParametersAsUnicode Method (SQLServerDataSource) |
|---|---|
| description | setSendStringParametersAsUnicode Method (SQLServerDataSource) |
| author | David-Engel |
| ms.author | davidengel |
| ms.date | 01/28/2026 |
| ms.service | sql |
| ms.subservice | connectivity |
| ms.topic | reference |
| apilocation | sqljdbc.jar |
| apiname | SQLServerDataSource.setSendStringParametersAsUnicode |
| apitype | Assembly |
[!INCLUDEDriver_JDBC_Download]
Sets a boolean value that indicates whether the driver sends string parameters to the server in Unicode format.
public void setSendStringParametersAsUnicode(boolean sendStringParametersAsUnicode)
sendStringParametersAsUnicode
true if the driver sends string parameters to the server in Unicode format. Otherwise, false.
When the sendStringParametersAsUnicode property is set to true, which is the default value, the driver sends string parameters to the server in UTF-16LE (UTF-16 Little Endian) encoding, matching SQL Server's internal NCHAR/NVARCHAR storage format. The driver converts CHAR, VARCHAR, and LONGVARCHAR types to NCHAR, NVARCHAR, and LONGNVARCHAR respectively before sending them to the server.
When sendStringParametersAsUnicode is set to false, the driver sends string parameters in the database's collation-specific MBCS (Multi-Byte Character Set) encoding. The specific code page used depends on the target database or column collation. This isn't ASCII (which is 7-bit only), but rather the full character encoding defined by the collation.
If you don't set sendStringParametersAsUnicode, getSendStringParametersAsUnicode returns the default value of true.
Note
Changing this value can affect the sorting of results from the database. The sorting differences are due to different sorting rules for Unicode versus non-Unicode characters. For VARCHAR/CHAR columns, setting this to false avoids implicit conversion overhead on the server.
For more information about the sendStringParametersAsUnicode connection property, see Setting the Connection Properties. For details about SQL Server's Unicode support, see Collation and Unicode Support.