Contains one row for each character set and sort order defined for use by Microsoft® SQL Server™. One of the sort orders is marked in sysconfigures as the default sort order, which is the only one actually in use.
| Column name | Data type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| type | smallint | Type of entity this row represents. 1001 is a character set; 2001 is a sort order. |
| id | tinyint | Unique ID for the character set or sort order. Note sort orders and character sets cannot share the same ID number. The ID range of 1 through 240 is reserved for SQL Server use. |
| csid | tinyint | If the row represents a character set, this field is unused. If the row represents a sort order, this field is the ID of the character set that the sort order is built on. It is assumed a character set row with this ID exists in this table. |
| status | smallint | Internal system status information bits. |
| name | sysname | Unique name for the character set or sort order. This field must contain only the letters A-Z or a-z, numbers 0 - 9, and underscores(_). It must begin with a letter. |
| description | nvarchar(255) | Optional description of the features of the character set or sort order. |
| binarydefinition | varbinary(255) | For internal use only. |
| definition | image | Internal definition of the character set or sort order. The structure of the data in this field depends on the type. |