changing SQL Server database collation

Question

Is it possible to change collation for all objects under the database?

For example, if I change the database collation, it should change all the objects (tables,procs,etc.) related to that database.

Answer 1

I had this issue a while ago when we changed the underlying database to support unicode and needed to change character sets on a legacy database to support hungarian.

This script will get you a long way to changing the collation; you will need to change the main DB collation manually. I haven't had to run it in a long while it doesn't fix any calculated columns but there may be other issues. Don't run it in a live database without testing it first - you might want to select out the changes it makes so you can audit or figure out the ones missed later.

Declare
    @NewCollation varchar(255), @DBName sysname
Select  @NewCollation = 'Latin_1_CI_AI', -- change this to the collation that you need
        @DBName = DB_NAME()

Declare
    @CName varchar(255), @TbleName sysname, @objOwner sysname, @Sql varchar(8000), @Size int, @Status tinyint, @Colorder int

Declare CurWhileLoop cursor read_only forward_only local
for Select
       QUOTENAME(C.Name)
      ,T.Name
      ,QUOTENAME(U.Name) + '.' +QUOTENAME(O.Name)
      ,C.Prec
      ,C.isnullable
      ,C.colorder
    From syscolumns C
      inner join systypes T on C.xtype=T.xtype
      inner join sysobjects O on C.ID=O.ID
      inner join sysusers u on O.uid = u.uid
    where T.Name in ('varchar', 'char', 'text', 'nchar', 'nvarchar', 'ntext')
      and O.xtype in ('U')
      and C.collation != @NewCollation
    and objectProperty(O.ID, 'ismsshipped')=0
    order by 3, 1

open CurWhileLoop
SET XACT_ABORT ON
begin tran
fetch CurWhileLoop into @CName, @TbleName, @objOwner, @Size, @Status, @Colorder
while @@FETCH_STATUS =0
begin
  set @Sql='ALTER TABLE '+@objOwner+' ALTER COLUMN '+@CName+' '+@TbleName+ isnull ('('
+convert(varchar,@Size)+')', '') +' COLLATE '+ @NewCollation
+' '+case when @Status=1 then 'NULL' else 'NOT NULL' end
  exec(@Sql) -- change this to print if you need only the script, not the action
  fetch CurWhileLoop into @CName, @TbleName, @objOwner, @Size, @Status, @Colorder
end
close CurWhileLoop
deallocate CurWhileLoop
commit tran