As I have said before, I think the note encouraging implementers to look
at Unicode TR10, as well as the reference to "cultural correctness",
provides pretty clear evidence that the word "lexicographic" was not
intended to be read in its narrow mathematical sense.
Michael Kay
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
[mailto:owner-xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com] On Behalf Of
Stan Devitt
Sent: 06 August 2003 18:24
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: Re: AW: [xsl] Sorting Upper-Case first. Microsoft bug?
I apologize for yet another message on lexicographic sorting
but in light of the considerable confusion exibited on this
issue I'd like
to see
three points emphasised.
1. Lexicograpahic is important precisely because it is so
well defined
(and
because of this I suspect the spec writers really meant it when the
wrote it in. )
It provides an easy to check reference implementation that
is 99% usable.
2. The notion of "lexicographic sorting" in the "culturally correct"
manner is also valid,
but it falls short of implementing all of UTR 10. The only
"cultural
choice" you have in a
lexicograpahic sort is in deciding on a total order of the
symbols of
your alphabet.
After that, everything else is determined.
3. Placing selected "words" out of lexicographic order
(however well
intended)
clearly violates the lexicographic constraint of the spec and is in
error as the spec
is currently worded.
As a follow on action, I'd like to see the spec writers
clarify (in the
spec)
that they really do mean lexicographic, and perhaps augment
the list of
available sorts
by a "pseudo-lexicographical" or "word" based sort in order
to capture what actually got implemented and which is
important for its own reasons but is much less well defined.
Stan Devitt
Markus Abt wrote:
David,
It seems to me that the XSLT specification wants
lexicographic ordering
in the culturally correct manner. Mabye this is a contradiction, in
this case I would regard this an error in the XSLT spec.
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