Re: sorting chinese characters

Thanks for your reply, Let me explain a bit more about my problem. I have a
member master table where in i have member_name_hiragana, member_name_chinese
[member_name_hiragana has member names in hiragana chars and
member_name_chinese has member names in chinese chars].
when i execute the query "select * from member_master orderby
member_name_hiragana" then the sort it a proper sort order. But when i
execute "select * from member_master orderby member_name_chinese" then it
does not sort properly. I am not sure about the sort order, but my clients
say that that is not a proper sort. How can i fix this?

Thanks again,
Prabahar

> On Friday 25 April 2003 10:22, prabahar wrote:
> > Hi, I have a requirement where I have to sort a field which has euc-jp
> > characters in it. When i sort them we find that Japanese Hiragana
> > Characters are sorted properly. But Chinese characters are not sorted
> > properly.
>
> Can you define "properly"? What is it you want to sort?
>
> > Can any one give some sujestions how to fix it? I have set the
> > LC_ALL=ja_JP in the profile.
>
> Unfortunately with Japanese "Chinese" characters there is no algorithmically
> determinable sort order You will need some kind of lookup table containing
> hiragana (and possibly katakana) if you want to sort in phonetic dictionary
> order as there is a "many to many" relationship between characters /
> combinations of characters and their pronuncation(s).
>
> If the data you are dealing with represents names you don't have a chance
> unless the data comes with the pronunciation in a seperate field (which
> is why Japanese forms usually have space for both characters and
> pronuncation).
>
> It should be possible using a lookup table to determine sort order
> of a given set of characters based on their structure (radical /
> stroke count), but this method of sorting is archaic and generally
> not used.
>
> Ian Barwick
> barwick(at)gmx(dot)net

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