The physical storage of character strings in a database is controlled by collations. A collation specifies the bit patterns that represent each character and the rules by which characters are sorted and compared.
For CAST two aspects of collations are relevant: the character set and case-sensivity. This document covers case-sensivity.
Case-sensivity is the consequence of the sort order of the collation. The sort order defines in which order characters are sorted by the database.
The following character map defines a case-sensitive sort order. Charactes are sorted in the order they appear in the map.
! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
@ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _
` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
{ | }
~ 
Ç ü é â ä à å ç ê ë è ï î ì Ä Å É æ Æ ô ö ò û ù ÿ Ö Ü ø £ Ø × ?
á í ó ú ñ Ñ ª º ¿ ® ¬ ½ ¼ ¡ « » ? ? ? ? ? Á Â À © ? ? ? ? ¢ ¥ ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ã Ã ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ¤ ð Ð Ê Ë È ? Í Î Ï ? ? ? ? ¦ Ì ?
Ó ß Ô Ò õ Õ µ þ Þ Ú Û Ù ý Ý ¯ ´ ­ ± ? ¾ ¶ § ÷ ¸ ° ¨ - ¹ ³ ² ?  
The following character map excerpt defines a case-insensitive sort order. All characters that are linked by an equal sign (=) have the same sort precedence:
! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
@ A=Á=Â=À=Ã=Ä=Å=Æ=a=â=ä=à=å=a=æ=á B=b C=Ç=c=ç D=d [ ... ]

A collation can be defined for

• The entire server
• An entire database within the server
• An entire table within a database
• A column within a table

Each Sybase and Microsoft server has at least a default collation defined on the server level.