Sort Order Under Unicode

Sort order is based on the binary values assigned to the characters. When the server is configured for Unicode, the sort order is based on the Unicode encoding standard. If ascending values of the codes correspond to the alphabetical order of the letters in the language being used, a report can be sorted in alphabetical order. This is entirely dependent on the encoding standard and its mapping of codes to letters. In many, but not all cases, the encoding standard assigns codes in the alphabetical order of each language.

For example, Ukrainian added a new letter (Cyrillic capital letter ghe with upturn) to its alphabet after the UTF-8 coding specification had already been set. This letter was not assigned a code that sorts it alphabetically, either in Unicode or in code page 1251 (used for Ukrainian). It sorts differently and incorrectly using either encoding scheme.

To determine whether a language sorts alphabetically, you can examine the hexadecimal codes assigned to its letters on the code page you are using and check whether ascending hexadecimal codes match the alphabetical order.


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