Selecting the Default Sort Order

SAP servers can support only one default sort order at a time. If your users all use the same language, or their languages all use the same sort order, selecting the default sort order is straightforward. .

For example, if your users are using French data and expect French sorting, then you can pick one of the French dictionary sort orders. Or if your users are using data in multiple languages and the languages use the same sort order, for example English, French, and German, you can pick one sort order and it works for all your users in all languages.

However, if you have users using different languages that require different sort orders, for example French and Spanish, then you must select one of the sort orders as the default. If you pick, for example, a French sort order, your Spanish users will not see the ch and ll double characters sorted as they would expect. The installation procedure, by default, configures the server with the binary sort order.

You can use the sortkey function to set up customized alternative sort orders for your data—one for each language.These sort orders can be selected dynamically to meet the needs of different users. The sortkey function is separate from the default sort order, but can coexist in the same server. The range and depth of sort orders provided by the sortkey function is better than those provided by the default sort order mechanism. For more information, see sortkey and compare in the Reference Manual: Building Blocks.

Available sort orders
Language or script	Character sets	Sort orders
All languages	UTF-8	Multiple sort orders
Cyrillic: Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian	CP 855, CP 866, CP 1251, ISO 8859-5, Koi8, Macintosh Cyrillic	Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive
Eastern European: Czech, Slovak	CP 852, ISO 8859-2, CP 1250	Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive, with preference Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent insensitive
English, French, German	ASCII 8, CP 437, CP850, CP 860, CP 863, CP 1252a, ISO 8859-1, ISO 8859-15, Macintosh Roman, ROMAN8, ROMAN9, ISO 15	Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive, with preference Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent insensitive
English, French, German	CP 850, CP 858	Alternate dictionary order, case sensitive Alternate dictionary order, case sensitive, accent insensitive Alternate dictionary order, case sensitive, with preference
Greek	ISO 8859-7	Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive
Hungarian	ISO 8859-2	Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent insensitive
Japanese	EUCJIS, SJIS, DECKANJI	General purpose case-insensitive dictionary ordering
Kazakh	87	50
Russian	CP 866, CP 1251, ISO 8859-5, Koi8, Macintosh Cyrillic	Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent sensitive
Scandinavian	CP 850	Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, with preference
Simplified Chinese	EUC-GB, GB-18030, CP936	General purpose case-insensitive dictionary ordering
Spanish	ASCII 8, CP 437, CP850, CP 860, CP 863, CP 1252, ISO 8859-1, ISO 8859-15, Macintosh Roman, ROMAN8	Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent insensitive
Thai	CP 874, TIS 620	Dictionary order
Turkish	ISO 8859-9	Dictionary order, case sensitive, accent sensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent insensitive Dictionary order, case insensitive, accent sensitive
Western European	CP 1252	Dictionary order, case insensitive, case sensitive, with preference, accent insensitive, Spanish dictionary, Spanish case insensitive, Spanish accent insensitive

If your language does not appear here, there is no language-specific sort order for your language. Select a binary sort order and then investigate whether the sortkey function meets your needs. As this table illustrates, many languages have more than one sort order.