unicode-transact-sql.md

title	UNICODE (Transact-SQL)
description	UNICODE (Transact-SQL)
author	MikeRayMSFT
ms.author	mikeray
ms.date	03/14/2017
ms.service	sql
ms.subservice	t-sql
ms.topic	reference
ms.custom	ignite-2025
f1_keywords	UNICODE UNICODE_TSQL
helpviewer_keywords	first character of input expression [SQL Server] UNICODE function Unicode [SQL Server], UNICODE function
dev_langs	TSQL
monikerRange	>=aps-pdw-2016 || =azuresqldb-current || =azure-sqldw-latest || >=sql-server-2016 || >=sql-server-linux-2017 || =azuresqldb-mi-current || =fabric || =fabric-sqldb

UNICODE (Transact-SQL)

[!INCLUDE sql-asdb-asdbmi-asa-pdw-fabricse-fabricdw-fabricsqldb]

Returns the integer value, as defined by the Unicode standard, for the first character of the input expression.

:::image type="icon" source="../../includes/media/topic-link-icon.svg" border="false"::: Transact-SQL syntax conventions

Syntax

UNICODE ( 'ncharacter_expression' )  

Arguments

' ncharacter_expression '
Is an nchar or nvarchar expression.

Return Types

int

Remarks

In versions of [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] earlier than [!INCLUDEssSQL11] and in [!INCLUDE ssazure-sqldb], the UNICODE function returns a UCS-2 codepoint in the range 000000 through 00FFFF which is capable of representing the 65,535 characters in the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). Starting with [!INCLUDEssSQL11], when using Supplementary Character (SC) enabled collations, UNICODE returns a UTF-16 codepoint in the range 000000 through 10FFFF. For more information on Unicode support in the [!INCLUDEssDE-md], see Collation and Unicode Support.

Examples

A. Using UNICODE and the NCHAR function

The following example uses the UNICODE and NCHAR functions to print the UNICODE value of the first character of the string Åkergatan 24, and to print the actual first character, Å.

DECLARE @nstring NCHAR(12);  
SET @nstring = N'Åkergatan 24';  
SELECT UNICODE(@nstring), NCHAR(UNICODE(@nstring));  

[!INCLUDEssResult]

----------- -   
197         Å  

B. Using SUBSTRING, UNICODE, and CONVERT

The following example uses the SUBSTRING, UNICODE, and CONVERT functions to print the character number, the Unicode character, and the UNICODE value of each of the characters in the string Åkergatan 24.

-- The @position variable holds the position of the character currently  
-- being processed. The @nstring variable is the Unicode character   
-- string to process.  
DECLARE @position INT, @nstring NCHAR(12);  
-- Initialize the current position variable to the first character in   
-- the string.  
SET @position = 1;  
-- Initialize the character string variable to the string to process.   
-- Notice that there is an N before the start of the string, which   
-- indicates that the data following the N is Unicode data.  
SET @nstring = N'Åkergatan 24';  
-- Print the character number of the position of the string you are at,   
-- the actual Unicode character you are processing, and the UNICODE   
-- value for this particular character.  
PRINT 'Character #' + ' ' + 'Unicode Character' + ' ' + 'UNICODE Value';  
WHILE @position <= LEN(@nstring)  
-- While these are still characters in the character string,  

BEGIN;  
   SELECT @position AS [position],   
      SUBSTRING(@nstring, @position, 1) AS [character],  
      UNICODE(SUBSTRING(@nstring, @position, 1)) AS [code_point];  
   SET @position = @position + 1;  
END; 

[!INCLUDEssResult]

Character # Unicode Character UNICODE Value  
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
1           Å                 197           
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
2           k                 107           
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
3           e                 101           
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
4           r                 114           
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
5           g                 103           
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
6           a                 97            
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
7           t                 116           
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
8           a                 97            
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
9           n                 110           
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
10                            32            
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
11          2                 50            
  
----------- ----------------- -----------   
12          4                 52  

See Also

ASCII (Transact-SQL)
CHAR (Transact-SQL)
NCHAR (Transact-SQL)

Collation and Unicode Support