sql server thinks empty string equals to some characters

Question

if N'ab' = N'aޢb' select 'hit'

this will print 'hit'. i dont know why did sql server thinks these two string are equal. it seems that '�', or 'ޢ' or just empty string, are equal for sql server.

Answer 1

The character you are using is TAI LE LETTER SA which is part of a block in Unicode reserved for annotations. They are decorations and not really text, so they can be treated as invisible by SQL Server.