I've been reading and thinking about this topic for a while, and would like to add my thoughts.
I realize that we don't "vote" on features, but I feel that this type of idea has merit. It is true, that SQLite has user defined collations, and a extension could be registered, but the problem with that is twofold: Number 1, the database is no longer portable. The only solution to this is to include the functionality in the core. Number 2, your platform may not support the sqlite3_create_collation interface. For example, Firefox now includes SQLite. Unfortunately, while Firefox supports user defined functions, their implementation does not support user defined collations. Someone commented that the US lives in a 7-bit world. This means that the other 6 billion people on the planet do not. This creates a real problem for me. I am writing a foreign language Firefox extension, and the issue of sorting is critical, since Firefox uses Unicode sorting, which does not "sort" (based on my rules) correctly. This means I have no way to correct the sorting, except in the display routines. That being said, I would not limit this feature to 8bit locales. A more general solution would be to design it around a sqlite_collation master table in the database. An application developer (not the SQLite team) would be responsible to define and populate their "user defined" collation. True, if I call my "user defined" collation sequence "COLLATE_PN", someone else might use the same identifier. Their lookup table even be different than the "COLLATE_PN" I am using. However, I feel that is a deployment problem, not a development issue. It is unlikely that in a single SQLite database, we would have 2 user tables, with the same "user defined" collation identifier, but differing collation lookups. I would encourage the developers to at least consider such a feature, after all, they did recently add the built-in RTRIM collation. Regards, Noah Hart -----Original Message----- - Please, let us try to bring down the discussion to the intended solution - a simple way to define and use a "user defined" collating for 8 bit ASCII characters! As said before, the proposal doesn't rely on locales. If a user needs a german collating sequence with sort order for phone-book, dictionary or german upper case, it's up to the user to supply a simple 256 byte string with the wanted/needed sort order for that index. It could be beneficial to all users with the need for special sorting requirements and almost no impact to cpu cycles, even on small systems. There sould be many users with 8bit ASCII locales requirements that would love such an extension. CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the addressee or authorized to receive this for the addressee, you must not use, copy, disclose, or take any action based on this message or any information herein. If you have received this message in error, please advise the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete this message. Thank you for your cooperation. _______________________________________________ sqlite-users mailing list sqlite-users@sqlite.org http://sqlite.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sqlite-users
