Of course XSLT 1.0 doesn't actualy define "lexicographic" but
my understanding is that it always implies a direct extension
on an ordering on characters to an ordering on strings by
comparing the first different position. If that isn't what is
intended I think XSLT shouldn't use this term and should just
directly refer to TR10.
My dictionary defines "lexicographical" [sic] as "pertaining to the
making of dictionaries", so on that basis "lexicographic order" means
"the order that headwords might appear in a dictionary". And in my
dictionary, "Johnsonian" comes after "johnny" and before
"joie-de-vivre". I think the great man would have been surprised if he
had appeared before "a" or after "zymotic".
I know that the word lexicographic is also used to describe a class of
sorting algorithms, but I don't think the XSLT 1.0 spec is using the
word in that sense. This is clear from the phrase "lexicographically in
the culturally correct manner for the language..." and from the fact
that it recommends Unicode TR10, which is not a lexicographic sort in
that sense.
Michael Kay
XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list