Question

I am looking to join two tables by a common string ignoring accents and capitalization.

I’ve been looking for an answer to this question and can’t figure it out. I am working with a dirty database and I need to be able to join two tables by a varchar column where some of the rows have accents and some do not.

Below is what I have so far but does not execute due to incorrect syntax. Thank you for your help!

SELECT p.product_id, VarDim.dimension_id 
FROM product p 
LEFT JOIN Dimension dim on COLLATE Latin1_general_CI_AI dim.[Description] = COLLATE Latin1_general_CI_AI p.shortdesc

Answer 1

You just need to place a single COLLATE to the right of the joined columns:

SELECT p.product_id, VarDim.dimension_id 
FROM product p 
LEFT JOIN Dimension dim on dim.[Description] = p.shortdesc COLLATE Latin1_general_CI_AI