Beginning Microsoft SQL Server 2008 ... - S3 Tech Training

Appendix A: System Functions
CAST and CONVERT
These two functions provide similar functionality in that they both convert one data type into another
type.
Using CAST:
CAST( AS )
Using CONVERT:
CONVERT ([()], [, ])
Where style refers to the style of date format when converting to a character data type.
COALESCE
The COALESCE function is passed an undefined number of arguments and it tests for the first non-null
expression among them. The syntax is as follows:
COALESCE( [,...n])
If all arguments are NULL then COALESCE returns NULL.
COLLATIONPROPERTY
The COLLATIONPROPERTY function returns the property of a given collation. The syntax is as follows:
COLLATIONPROPERTY(, )
The collation_name parameter is the name of the collation you wish to use, and property is the property
of the collation you wish to determine. This can be one of three values:
CURRENT_USER
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Property Name Description
CodePage The non-Unicode code page of the collation.
LCID The Windows LCID of the collation. Returns NULL for SQL collations.
ComparisonStyle The Windows comparison style of the collation. Returns NULL for binary or
SQL collations.
The CURRENT_USER function simply returns the current user as a sysname type. It is equivalent to
USER_NAME(). The syntax is as follows:
CURRENT_USER