How do you compare strings so that the comparison is true only if the cases of each of the strings are equal as well. For example:
Select * from a_table where attribute = 'k'
...will return a row with an attribute of 'K'. I do not want this behaviour.
simplifying the general answer
SQL Case Sensitive String Compare
These examples may be helpful:
Declare @S1 varchar(20) = 'SQL'
Declare @S2 varchar(20) = 'sql'
if @S1 = @S2 print 'equal!' else print 'NOT equal!' -- equal (default non-case sensitivity for SQL
if cast(@S1 as binary) = cast(Upper(@S2) as binary) print 'equal!' else print 'NOT equal!' -- equal
if cast(@S1 as binary) = cast(@S2 as binary) print 'equal!' else print 'NOT equal!' -- not equal
if @S1 COLLATE Latin1_General_CS_AS = Upper(@S2) COLLATE Latin1_General_CS_AS print 'equal!' else print 'NOT equal!' -- equal
if @S1 COLLATE Latin1_General_CS_AS = @S2 COLLATE Latin1_General_CS_AS print 'equal!' else print 'NOT equal!' -- not equal
The convert is probably more efficient than something like runtime calculation of hashbytes, and I'd expect the collate may be even faster.