T-SQL reference › Collation
Collation in SQL Server: why two emails do not match
Collation is the rules for comparing text: case, accents, alphabet. A CI (case-insensitive) database treats Sam@ and sam@ as equal. A CS one does not.
See the rules
SELECT name, collation_name FROM sys.databases WHERE name = DB_NAME();
SELECT email FROM Customers WHERE email = 'sam@harbour.co';If a join misses rows that look the same, check trailing spaces first (TRIM), then collation. Do not sprinkle COLLATE on every column as a habit. Fix the data or the column.
Try it on Harbour & Co
Amy Nair (Finance Lead) needs this now: “Mailing list for the newsletter. Some names have stray spaces and emails have capitals. Clean it, no duplicates.” Write the query, run it, send the results. On the paid plan.
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