Appendix B: Character Sets, Sort Orders, Languages, and Locales

The following tables will help you determine how to choose a character set, sort order, language, and locale for an international application. The tables assume you are developing Windows applications using an ANSI or DBCS code page. For specific descriptions of each code point supported in these code pages, see Developing International Applications for Windows 95 and Windows NT.

Character Set ID

SQL Server's unique identifier for character sets used in the syscharsets table.

Character Set Name

Column that lists common names used to refer to the character set by SQL Server and other sources.

Character Set Type

Either SBCS for single-byte character sets or DBCS for double-byte character sets.

Primary Langids

Column that lists the SQL Server primary langids supported by the code page.

Alternate Langids

Column that lists any alternate langids supported for this code page by Instlang.sql.

Windows Locales

Table that lists Windows NLSAPI locales that are compatible with this code page. Locales marked with an asterisk can be used only with the character set if ODBC client-side character set conversion is enabled.

Sort Orders

A list of each sort order that can be supported for the code page.

Sort Order File

The name of the file SQL Server uses to define the sort order. These files are located in SQL Server's charsets subdirectory.

Sort Order ID

The unique ID assigned by SQL Server to identify the sort order in the syscharsets table.

Sort Order Description

The descriptive text used for the sort order by the SQL Setup program.