ARTICLE
Rules for Sorting
You may want to sort data according to the
locale of the text environment
instead of the usual binary sort. You can do
this using SORT ... AS TEXT for an internal
table or an extract . You can also use
CONVERT ... INTO SORTABLE CODE to
generate a field that reproduces the order according to the
locale of the text environment.
The locale is either predefined,
or can be set explicitly in a program
using the SET LOCALE statement.
The result of a locale -specific sort depends on
the operating system of the
application server , since its locale determines the way in
which
data is sorted. While the sequence of letters belonging to the active
language is the same on any operating system, different operating
systems differ in how they treat those characters that do not belong to
the alphabet of the current language.
In sorting whole words, slight differences may occur in the sort order
of letters from the active language.
Furthermore, the sequence of upper- and lowercase letters depends on
the operating system.
You cannot assume that locale -specific sorting will produce
worthwhile result.
Remember that you must reckon with differences between operating
systems!
For this reason, never assume a particular sort order in your program
code!
SAP is currently in discussion with various operating system
manufacturers about unifying the sort order. This should become
available in a future release. This means that the sort sequence could,
in future, change from its current rules.
Documentation extract taken from SAP system, � Copyright SAP AG. All rights reserved