---
title: "What is the purpose of using COLLATE in a query?"  
description: "What is the purpose of using COLLATE in a query?"  
author: "Amit Singh"  
published: 2011-05-03  
updated: 2020-09-18  
canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/interview/819/what-is-the-purpose-of-using-collate-in-a-query  
category: "mssql server"  
tags: ["mssql server"]  
reading_time: 2 minutes  

---

# What is the purpose of using COLLATE in a query?

The term, collation, refers to a set of rules that determine

how data is sorted and compared. In Microsoft? SQL Server

2000, it is not required to separately specify code page and

sort order for character data, and the collation used for

Unicode data. Instead, specify the collation name and

sorting rules to use.

## Answers

### Answer by hanmandlu vasani

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### Answer by Amit Singh

The term, collation, refers to a set of rules that determine

how data is sorted and compared. In Microsoft? SQL Server

2000, it is not required to separately specify code page and

sort order for character data, and the collation used for

Unicode data. Instead, specify the collation name and

sorting rules to use.

### Answer by Amit Singh

COLLATE is a clause that can be applied to a database definition or a column definition to define the collation, or to a character string expression to apply a collation cast.

### Answer by Amit Singh

Collation refers to a set of rules that determine how data is sorted and compared. Character data is sorted using rules that define the correct character sequence, with options for specifying case-sensitivity, accent marks, kana character types and character width.


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