LC_COLLATE Locale Category
The LC_COLLATE category definition in a locale
source file establishes the relative order between collating
elements in the locale that is compiled from that source by the
LOCALDEF utility.
Collating elements are single characters or
sequences of characters specified with the collating element
LC_COLLATE keyword. Collating rules consist of ordered sets of
collating order statements. The LC_COLLATE keywords establish a
collation sequence that assigns each element one or more
collation values, or collation weights.
The LC_COLLATE category supports the following
capabilities:
- Multicharacter collating elements.
Specification of multicharacter collating elements
(sequences of two or more characters to be collated as an
entity).
- User-defined ordering of collating
elements. Each collating element is assigned a
collation value defining its order in the character (or
basic) collation sequence. This ordering is used by
regular expressions and pattern matching, and unless
collation weights are explicitly specified, also as the
collation weight to be used in sorting.
- Multiple weights and equivalence
classes. Collating elements can be assigned 1 to
6 collating weights for use in sorting. The first weight
is referred to as the primary weight.
- One-to-many mapping. A
single character is mapped into a string of collating
elements.
- Many-to-Many substitution.
A string of one or more characters are mapped to another
string (or an empty string). The character or characters
are ignored for collation purposes.
- Equivalence class definition.
Two or more collating elements have the same collation
value (primary weight).
- Ordering by weights. When
two strings are compared to determine their relative
order, the two strings are first broken up into a series
of collating elements. Each successive pair of elements
is compared according to the relative primary weights for
the elements. If they are equal, and more than one weight
is assigned, then the pairs of collating elements are
compared again according to the relative subsequent
weights, until either two collating elements are not
equal or the weights are exhausted.
Example: LC_COLLATE Locale Category Definition
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