Re: XSLT sorting for index alphabetization

On 16/06/2014, Jirka Kosek jirka@xxxxxxxx
<xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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> On 13.6.2014 23:06, David Sewell dsewell@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> I spent a bit of time trying to figure out how one might implement
>> the word-by-word system (described at the above URL) using
>> xsl:sort, but I'm not sure it's possible--it seems that
>> word-by-word would require a full-blown recursive sorting routine.
>> I'm happy to be proven wrong, though, by anyone who has tackled
>> this before or is cleverer than I am about such things.
>
> In XSLT 2.0 you can use user- or implementation-defined collations
> using collation="" attribute on xsl:sort.
>
> Using this feature and some effort you can implement any collation.

(I'm assuming that XSLT collations can be defined as in Saxon.)

I've researched several Java collations a few weeks ago, and they can be
pretty nasty. The word-by-word sort David describes is not something
the inventors of the Java Collation definition had in mind; that one
is inherently character based.

If someone comes up with a java.text.RuleBasedCollator implementation
for word-by-word, I'd be *very* much surprised. And, to boot, it ought
to be able
to handle other languages as well, and according to their locale.
(Canadian French sorting is different from French French sorting.
Swiss German... German German... Austrian German... And that's hardly
leaving the Roman alphabet.)

Of course: if the XSLT transformator would let you write a plugin for
the collation, the word-by-word would be manageable with "some
effort".

-W

>
> 				Jirka
>
>
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