Re: Sorting Problem

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Dennis Gearon wrote:

> Got a link to that section of the standard, or better yet, to a
> 'interpreted' version of the standard? :-)

The standard draft yes, an interpreted version, unfortunately not (unless
Date's book covers it and I can find where my copy is.

Here are some of the highlights

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k) form-of-use: A convention (or encoding) for representing
characters (in character strings). Some forms-of-use are
fixed-length codings and others are variable-length codings.

l) form-of-use conversion: A method of converting character
strings from one form-of-use to another form-of-use.

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A character set is described by a character set descriptor. A
character set descriptor includes:

- the name of the character set or character repertoire,

- if the character set is a character repertoire, then the name of
the form-of-use,

- an indication of what characters are in the character set, and

- the name of the default collation of the character set.

For every character set, there is at least one collation. A
collation is described by a collation descriptor. A collation descriptor
includes:

- the name of the collation,

- the name of the character set on which the collation operates,

- whether the collation has the NO PAD or the PAD SPACE attribute,
and

- an indication of how the collation is performed.

---

The character data types and literals can include a character set
definition. Character type columns can include a collation. There's a
COLLATE <blah> clause that looks like it can be used in expressions as
well.