Re: How do I not ignore whitespace when sorting?

You could try using the Unicode codepoint collation

<xsl:sort...
collation="http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-functions/collation/codepoint"/>

With Saxon 8 you can map a collation URI to any Java collator class, for
example you can set up your own RuleBasedCollator. From your example,
however, I'm not convinced that a collation you design yourself is going to
work better, in general, than the standard English-language locale collation
supplied by the Java VM: you might get better results for some specific
cases, but I think you're unlikely to get better results across the board.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Wilson [mailto:drmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 18 December 2005 16:08
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re:  How do I not ignore whitespace when sorting?

Thanks for a quick response Michael. I'm using Saxon 8. Will
look into
translate().

Mark

----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Kay" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2005 10:37 AM
Subject: RE: How do I not ignore whitespace when sorting?

> Collating sequences in XSLT 1.0 are entirely
implementation-defined.
> There's
> a strong suggestion in the spec that the system should
choose a collation
> appropriate to the natural language in use. Conventions for
handling
> spaces
> and punctuation within the strings to be sorted are
notoriously variable,
> but ignoring spaces is quite common, and certainly not
incorrect: if I
> look
> up "ad hoc" in a dictionary, I expect to find it between
"adhesive" and
> "adieu".
>
> In 2.0 there's a more formal mechanism for identifying the
collation you
> want to be used, but it's still essentially
implementation-defined what
> collations are available with a particular product.
>
> You might find that a pragmatic solution is to use
translate() to modify
> the
> characters in the string before sorting.
>
> Michael Kay
> http://www.saxonica.com/
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mark Wilson [mailto:drmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: 18 December 2005 15:29
>> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject:  How do I not ignore whitespace when sorting?
>>
>> Thanks for all the help with my previous question. This is my
>> first week
>> with XSLT, so please forgive my not knowing where to look. I
>> have tracked
>> down many comments on sorting, but failed to find one to answer the
>> following.
>>
>> I am trying to sort a library subject catalog. I finally
>> realized that the
>> default <xsl:sort> was ignoring whitespace within the value
>> of the element.
>> The order I get is:
>> Catalogs. Austria
>> Catalogs -- Zepplins
>>
>> when I what I want is:
>> Catalogs -- Zepplins
>> Catalogs. Austria.
>> ( for the *space* at the end of 'catalogs ' to file before
>> the *period* at
>> the end of 'catalogs.'
>>
>> I was able to demonstrate to myself that white space is
>> ignored when I
>> inserted a *space within* the word 'cat alogs' and still got
>> this result:
>> Catalogs. Austria
>> Cat alogs -- Zepplins
>>
>> Since this means that everyone would have serious problems
>> sorting things
>> like "Art tissue" and Artisians", I assume there must be a way.
>> Can I, and if so how do I, tell <xsl:sort> not to ignore
>> whitespace? Do I
>> need a special external colation?
>> Thanks,
>> Mark