According to the SonarQube documentation "Installing the Server" (https://docs.sonarqube.org/display/sonar/installing+the+server), for a Microsoft SQL Server host, "collation MUST be case-sensitive (CS) and accent-sensitive (AS)."
The documentation is not clear if the collation must be set:
for the SQL Server instance, or
the database
If the collation for the SQL Server (and specifically for tempdb) is "accent insensitive" and the database collation is "accent sensitive", does SonarQube accommodate this configuration?
If the collation for the SQL Server (and specifically for tempdb) is "accent insensitive" and the database collation is "accent sensitive", does SonarQube accommodate this configuration?
Since the documentation is ambiguous (they might not use SQL Server enough to know the different levels where Collation can be set), the only two ways to get the answer here are:
Contact their community: https://www.sonarqube.org/community/feedback/. This is the best choice.
Install it on an Instance that has an accent insensitive default Collation and test it out. No reason not to try this.
Whether or not SonarQube handles this properly depends on how it was coded. They could be JOINing on string columns in temporary tables and any difference in Collation between the Database and Instance could potentially cause an error, but only if they are not specifically declaring the Collation when creating the temp tables.
Also, it is possible that their app needs the accent sensitivity because they have some variables names and/or cursor names and/or (less likely) GOTO label names that might equate under accent insensitivity that should otherwise be seen as different. Instance-level Collation controls these areas and would hence affect the name resolution of those items. Of course, this would be easy to test for since declaring two variables that are considered different names under accent sensitivity will cause a parse error if close enough to be considered the same under accent insensitivity. Still, contact their community.
Related
My ASP.NET application is developed with a SQL Server database with a case insensitive collation. The inline SQL scripts sometimes use variables and CTEs. In a case insensitive server, the app works perfectly fine, even if sometimes the variable names mismatch capitalization.
Recently the database team migrated our database to a different server that IS case sensitive, and some of the code path started failing.
The database team can not change the server collation because an existing database requires that particular collation. Is there a way for me to set a flag or something at connection property, or anywhere, to treat the script as case insensitive? There are more than 50 data access calls, so it would be tiresome for me to check each SQL block to ensure capitalization.
Any help?
You can set your database to be a Partially Contained Database, which will allow you to use Contained Database Collations, which completely isolate you from the instance collation, and even allow you to use a case-sensitive collation for your data, without having a case-sensitive collation for your catalog, or code.
Is it possible to have a SQL Server 2012 database with a collation that ensures only the data is treated as case sensitive, with the database objects still referenced in a case insensitive manner?
We are migrating the database used by an application to SQL Server, and this database contains case sensitive data. But we don't want the database objects to be treated in a case sensitive manner, as that will have a significant negative impact on the existing code.
All research tends to suggest that this isn't possible, and the best we can do is identify which columns really do need to be case sensitive, and set the collation for these accordingly so we can minimize the damage. Is this the best we can hope for?
#Cleggy, it looks like you already got the answer from #Xedni's comment, but adding it here as a reference for anyone reading this page in future.
SQL Server collation settings depend on the type of installation. Case sensitivity is subject to collation of the data.
By default, databases created with SQL Server inherit the server collation.
By default, column in tables created in a database inherit the database collation.
There are plenty of opportunities to choose a case sensitive collation for your data between these options:
By choosing one when you create the database (Or)
By choosing one when you design the table
Please follow this link for more on SQL Server Collations.
We can change the database collation to case sensitive using the following T-SQL.
ALTER DATABASE <Database_Name> COLLATE Latin1_General_CS_AS
The following T-SQL will be helpful in understanding the various case sensitivity options.
SELECT * FROM fn_helpcollations()
I am trying to find a way of specifying a COLLATION for a user-defined data type, but it doesn't appear to support collations in SQL Server, and it basically takes the collation from the database.
Is there any way of applying a collation against a user defined data type that doesn't inherit from the database collation?
I am writing a database comparison tool, using the AdventureWorks2012 database for testing, and after generate an SQL diff script and running it on a blank database the tool is now reporting a lot of differences due to the collation being different to what was actually expected.
I could create the blank database with the same collation as the source database, but I need to consider situations where organisations, etc. may wish to change the collation on the database and my tool will not work consistently and will keep on reporting differences.
Thanks.
In SQL Server (2000 or 2005) is it possible to set the database or server collation so that identifier names (tables, columns, etc) need to be in the correct case? If so, is that true of all case-sensitive collations or is it a separate setting? (I've always thought of case-sensitivity applying to data, not to names of objects).
Presumably this would break an application if its stored procs and queries weren't written with consistent case? Is there a way to deal with this without having to ensure all queries use the correct case, such as setting the collation of a database connection?
I'm looking at this from the point of view of having an existing application which probably has inconsistently cased sql code in it, and I'm wanting to be able to run it against databases with different collations. What settings would I need or what set of database/server collations could I not use the application with?
The collation is what determines if your queries will be case insensitive. So the only way to ensure that your schema will work against multiple environments is to have your queries be case sensitive. If your queries are not consistent, then your collation MUST be case insensitive otherwise it will not work.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa174903(SQL.80).aspx
One thing to note is that once you've set up your SQL Server environment with a certain collation, you CANNOT change it without creating a NEW SQL Server instance. So Case-Insensitive is usually the way to go. And then strive to have consistency in your queries.
Once a collation is set it applies to both data and metadata, I believe.
Collation is set in earlier versions of SQL Server, but in 2005 and beyond, you can change it by object, as they are created.
The database default collation determines whether objects within the database are treated in a case-sensitive way in queries - this applies to all object name: tables, columns, etc.
If your application code comes from a case-insensitive collation database, it may not run on a case-sensitive collation database if a object is misreferenced (you would get a message when you attempted to run the statement or create the stored procedure, or in a stored-proc architecture, you would catch all these pretty quickly unless you had a significant amount of dynamic SQL).
Remember, that even if your code runs, individual columns can be set with collations which differ from the database, so it's always possible that with a differing collation, your code will behave unexpectedly (for instance, GROUP BY behaves differently).
You can set collation for each object, and set a default for the database and server as well.
How to deal with it? You need to enforce standards here. You can easily get yourself tangled up with different people write with different case.
The collation also applies to data so "bob" != "Bob"
Transferring data from one SQL server to another but when Schema is compared and syncronised the following error is received. We are using redgate SQL compare to complete.
Cannot resolve collation conflict for equal to operation
Base SQL server is SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS and the destination server is Latin1_General_CI_AS
SQL Compare has an option to ignore collations. Look under the tab "options" in your compare project configuration.
is you problem with the SQL Compare utlity, or a worry that different server collations will lead to problems?
You could change the collation of the destination server to match the Base server
If that is not possible, then make the Collation of the databases on each server match, and then your only real problem is likely to be any temporary tables which you create (they will have a default collation matching the server / TEMPDB), and so long as you explicitly create the temporary table (i.e. don't create it using SELECT * INTO #TEMP FROM MyTable) and explicitly assign a collation to any varchar/text columns you should be OK
The way I overcome this is to generate the scripts via SQL Compare and then strip out (or replace) the Collation specific code. This is relatively fast and easy to do, and finally I manually apply the scripts to the destination server/ database.
Sounds like the collation settings for the server are different.
How are you transferring the data, do you perform a database restore on your new platform?
Either way, you need to ensure that the same collation is used on your new environment as is currently in place in your source environment.
Hope this makes sense, let me know if you need further assistance.
"Ignore collations" is definitely not going to work, for the reason stated above. The problem happens when migrating objects like views and stored procedures that use JOIN clauses on text fields that have differing collations.
If someone changes the default collation on the server and the column on the other side of the JOIN uses a specific collation, you've caused this issue. And it would happen in SQL Compare as well as if you just manually scripted the object in SSMS and moved it yourself.
There are two roads to fixing it - you could specify a COLLATE clause on the join and explicitly state the collation you want to use, or you could change the destination database default collation to match the source.
I'm afraid there is no SQL Compare "magic bullet" to solve this.