Tom,
It is clear that it is the encoded components that are sorted.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 21 N4142 dated 1989-12-14 states:
(Section B - Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER)) in paragraph B2.5.3:
"The components of a set-of value shall be encoded in ascending
order of the octet values of their encodings."
This is a clarification from the working group.
Please note that the syntax of a DN is independent of any particular encoding
scheme. (This point has had to be forced upon me in the past.)
The production of an encoded DN using the DER requires that any
multi-valued RDN elements be ordered. This COULD be interpreted
to mean that they should be encoded first, then the encoded data evaluated
for ordering, but software engineering allows other techniques. One can imagine
an algorithm which is able to determine the order without actually having to
encode the data. Such an algorithm would perhaps realize some savings in
processing time.
Any volunteers ?
John