Complex Sorting

Dear XSL-ers,

In our experience sorting in the output document often varies from lexical
(or numerical) default according to the needs of the document in question.
For example, a list of names (of people or companies) may choose to sort
(say) "La Provence" and "31 Flavors" as though they were spelt "Laprovence"
and "Thirtyoneflavors" respectively.

Clearly it is beyond the power of XSL syntax to express such sort
algorithms directly. My question is, is there an extension mechanism
whereby the appropriate functionality can be imported from (say) ECMAscript
or Perl without having to pre- or post-process the data outside the control
of the stylesheet?

Regards,
Geoff Nolan


================================
 Geoff Nolan - Turn-Key Systems
     Tel: +61 2 9906 1577
     Fax: +61 2 9906 1342
   Email: gjn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
================================


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