Exact Difference between nvarchar and varchar data type.

Priyanka Singh

6y1.1k

What is the Exact difference between nvarchar and varchar data type in SQL server?Please explain me in your words.

9 Replies

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Vishal Yelve3y ago
Hey Priyanka,

Please refer below artile it will clear your doubt

https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/cda5ba/difference-between-char-nchar-varchar-and-nvarchar-data-ty/
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Rajeev Kumar3y ago
The key difference between varchar and nvarchar is the way they are stored, varchar is stored as regular 8-bit data(1 byte per character) and nvarchar stores data at 2 bytes per character. Due to this reason, nvarchar can hold upto 4000 characters and it takes double the space as SQL varchar.
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Jignesh Kumar6y ago
Hi Priaynka,

While working in sql to design our table, correct data type of column which is very important and will impact performance in future, There are some differences but here I want to give two main difference which we should be aware before define our data type,

1. Varchar - can store only non-unicode character while we can store unicode character in NVarchar datatype.
2. Varchar use only 1 byte of space while Nvarchar use 2 bytes of space for each character.

For more referece you can visit this link which will give you clear idea on this.
https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/36081/write-differences-between-varchar-and-nvarchar
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Sreekanth Reddy6y ago
@Priyanka Singh
After seeing all the posts let me explain in practical way.
Let us think there is a field "Question" in your DB with varchar :
Let us think that you are creating a question paper of hindi( or any other language). The questions will be in hindi laguage. So if you try to copy paste the question into your input box and tried to save, The question will be saved but it will not be hindi laguage in the concern question field.

The above problem can set by just making the "Question" field datatype from "varchar" to "nvarchar".

Please accept the answer. Thank you.
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Harsh Shah6y ago
NVARCHAR

-> It is a unicode variable lenght datatype

-> Used to store unicode characters

-> It takes 2 bytes per unicode and non-unicode characters

-> If we know that the data to be stored in the column or variable can have unicode characters

-> It can store both non-unicode and unicode characters

Example:

DECLARE @FirstName AS NVARCHAR(50)= ‘CSharpCorner’
SELECT @FirstName

VARCHAR

-> It is a non-unicode variable lenght datatype

-> Used to store non-unicode characters

-> It take 1 byte per characters

-> If we know that the data to be stored in the column or variable don't have any unicode characters
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Vishvjit Shinde6y ago
NVARCHAR:
-NVARCHAR is Unicode
-Stores 2 bytes per character
-It will take Maximum 1 billion Characters
-Unicode covers all of the languages that can be written in the following scripts: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Thaana, Devanagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Sinhala, Thai, Lao, Tibetan, Myanmar, Georgian, Hangul ..etc

VARCHAR :
-VARCHAR is non-Unicode
- Stores 1 byte per character
-It will take maximum 2 billion characters
+2
Ravi Patel6y ago
Hi,

Refer this

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/b6615caa-629b-45ac-9710-aab7f6e172b3/varchar-and-nvarchar-use-what-is-exact-difference-between-these?forum=sqldataaccess
+3
Rajanikant Hawaldar6y ago
Hi Priyanka refer thread
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/144283/what-is-the-difference-between-varchar-and-nvarchar
https://sqlhints.com/2011/12/23/difference-between-varchar-and-nvarchar/
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Salman Beg6y ago
Check this link, https://dotnet2developer.blogspot.com/2017/11/difference-between-varchar-and-nvarchar.html?m=1
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