by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2005/06/23 11:06 -07:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/2005/06/23/431909.aspx
This question came up a few times at TechEd in Orlando, and recently it was asked again in the newsgroups by a guy named Tim:
Does SQL server allow input in both NFC and NFD? If so does it
normalize so a select on an NFC piece of text returns NFD and vice
versa? If normalized, is this at input or when the select is run - i.e.
does output form always match input form?
Any pointers to documentaion covering this will be much appreciated.
Not sure I would be so bold as to call this blog documentation, but one of my first blog posts talks about it a little -- Normalization and Microsoft -- what's the story?
One additional point to make here is that SQL Server does not modify your data at all by tranforming it from one normalization form to another. It simply treats them as being equal in the index.
If it did not, then it would have to modify your data when you store it. What if you were building up a database of various normalized and partially normalized strings to show comparisons of how they render based on fonts? SQL Server would be destroying your application through the normalization process!
So it leaves your data alone and just makes sure to do the right thing in any index you create on the column into which the insert is done....