Re: A rough roadmap for internationalization fixes

Tatsuo Ishii writes:

> > 3. Implement Unicode collation algorithm and character classification
> > routines that are aware of 1. Use that in place of system locale
> > routines.
>
> I don't see a relationship between Unicode and the one you are going
> to replace the system locale routines. If you are going to the
> direction for an "Unicode central" implementation, I will object.

The Unicode collation algorithm works for any character set, not only for
Unicode. It just happens to be published by the Unicode consortium. So
basically this is just a concrete alternative to making up our own out of
thin air. Also, the Unicode collation algorithm gives us the flexibility
to define customizations of collations that users frequently want, such as
ignoring or not ignoring punctuation.

Actually, what will more likely happen is that we'll define a collation as
a collection of one or more support functions, the equivalents of
strxfrm() and possibly a few more. Then it will be up to those functions
to define the collation order. The server will provide utility functions
that will facilitate implementing a collation order that follows the
Unicode collation algorithm, but you could just as well implement one
using memcmp() or whatever you like.

--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net