--- title: "AlphabeticOrder" language: "en" type: "Symbol" summary: "AlphabeticOrder[SubscriptBox[string, 1], SubscriptBox[string, 2]] gives 1 if SubscriptBox[string, 1] appears before SubscriptBox[string, 2] in alphabetical order, -1 if it is after, and 0 if it is identical. AlphabeticOrder[SubscriptBox[string, 1], SubscriptBox[string, 2], lang] uses an ordering suitable for the language lang. AlphabeticOrder[lang] represents an operator form that compares strings when applied to SubscriptBox[string, 1], SubscriptBox[string, 2]." keywords: - lexicographic order - collation order - collation - letter order - alphabetic order canonical_url: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AlphabeticOrder.html" source: "Wolfram Language Documentation" related_guides: - title: "International Character Sets" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/InternationalCharacterSets.en.md" - title: "Linguistic Data" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/LinguisticData.en.md" - title: "Testing Expressions" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/TestingExpressions.en.md" - title: "String Operations" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/StringOperations.en.md" related_functions: - title: "AlphabeticSort" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AlphabeticSort.en.md" - title: "Order" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Order.en.md" - title: "LexicographicOrder" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LexicographicOrder.en.md" - title: "NumericalOrder" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NumericalOrder.en.md" - title: "Alphabet" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Alphabet.en.md" - title: "LanguageData" link: "https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LanguageData.en.md" --- # AlphabeticOrder AlphabeticOrder["Subscript[string, 1]","Subscript[string, 2]"] gives 1 if "Subscript[string, 1]" appears before "Subscript[string, 2]" in alphabetical order, -1 if it is after, and 0 if it is identical. AlphabeticOrder["Subscript[string, 1]","Subscript[string, 2]",lang] uses an ordering suitable for the language lang. AlphabeticOrder[lang] represents an operator form that compares strings when applied to "Subscript[string, 1]", "Subscript[string, 2]". ## Details and Options * The language can be specified by a language standard name, as used in ``LanguageData``, or by a language entity. It can also be an alphabet specification, as used in ``Alphabet``. * The default language is ``\$Language``. * The following options can be given: | | | | | ------------------ | ---------- | ------------------------------------------ | | CaseOrdering | Automatic | how to order upper vs. lower case | | IgnoreCase | False | whether to ignore case for ordering | | IgnoreDiacritics | False | whether to ignore diacritics for ordering | | IgnorePunctuation | False | whether to ignore punctuation for ordering | | Language | \$Language | what language or alphabet to assume | * If an explicit language is specified in ``AlphabeticOrder[…, lang]``, it overrides any setting for the ``Language`` option. --- ## Examples (23) ### Basic Examples (3) Check the order of two characters: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["a", "b"] Out[1]= 1 ``` --- Specify a language as the third argument: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["ñ", "n", "Spanish"] Out[1]= -1 ``` --- When digraphs exist in a language, they are equivalent to corresponding pairs of ASCII characters: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["ij", "ij", Entity["Language", "Dutch"]] Out[1]= 0 ``` ### Scope (4) ``AlphabeticOrder`` operates over single characters or longer strings: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["A", "c"] Out[1]= 1 In[2]:= AlphabeticOrder["cat", "cart"] Out[2]= -1 ``` --- Use the operator form: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder[]["A", "c"] Out[1]= 1 ``` --- Specify a language in operator form: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["Spanish"]["ñ", "n"] Out[1]= -1 ``` --- Use options in operator form: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder[CaseOrdering -> "UpperFirst"]["A", "a"] Out[1]= 1 ``` ### Options (8) #### CaseOrdering (2) ``CaseOrdering -> "LowerFirst"`` orders lowercase before uppercase letters. It is the default for most languages: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["a", "A"] === AlphabeticOrder["a", "A", CaseOrdering -> "LowerFirst"] Out[1]= True ``` --- ``CaseOrdering -> "UpperFirst"`` orders uppercase before lowercase letters: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["a", "A", "Danish"] Out[1]= -1 In[2]:= AlphabeticOrder["a", "A", "Danish"] === AlphabeticOrder["a", "A", CaseOrdering -> "UpperFirst"] Out[2]= True ``` #### IgnoreCase (2) With ``IgnoreCase -> True``, comparisons are case insensitive: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["a", "A", IgnoreCase -> #]& /@ {True, False} Out[1]= {0, 1} ``` --- Equivalence between lower case and upper case can vary by language: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["Turkish", IgnoreCase -> True]@@@{{"i", "I"}, {"ı", "I"}, {"i", "İ"}} Out[1]= {-1, 0, 0} ``` #### IgnoreDiacritics (3) With ``IgnoreDiacritics -> True``, comparisons are based only on basic letters from the alphabet: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["a", "á", "Spanish", IgnoreDiacritics -> True] Out[1]= 0 In[2]:= AlphabeticOrder["a", "á", "Spanish"] Out[2]= 1 ``` --- When characters with diacritics are considered to be a fundamental part of a given alphabet, ``IgnoreDiacritics`` will not affect those characters: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["n", "ñ", "English", IgnoreDiacritics -> True] Out[1]= 0 In[2]:= AlphabeticOrder["n", "ñ", "Spanish", IgnoreDiacritics -> True] Out[2]= 1 ``` --- The ``IgnoreDiacritics`` option can be mixed with any other option, such as ``IgnoreCase`` : ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["a", "Á", "Spanish", IgnoreDiacritics -> True, IgnoreCase -> True] Out[1]= 0 ``` #### IgnorePunctuation (1) With ``IgnorePunctuation -> True``, punctuation characters are removed before comparing the strings: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["Name-1", "Name.1", "Spanish", IgnorePunctuation -> True] Out[1]= 0 In[2]:= AlphabeticOrder["it's", "its", "English", IgnorePunctuation -> False] Out[2]= 1 In[3]:= AlphabeticOrder["it's", "its", "English", IgnorePunctuation -> True] Out[3]= 0 ``` ### Applications (2) Sort the Japanese names of countries with Wolfram offices: ```wl In[1]:= Sort[{"アメリカ合衆国", "日本", "イギリス", "ペルー", "スウェーデン"}, AlphabeticOrder[Entity["Language", "Japanese"]][##] >= 0&] Out[1]= {"アメリカ合衆国", "イギリス", "スウェーデン", "ペルー", "日本"} ``` --- When digraphs are part of a language, they will be ordered correctly (as in Slovak, where "ch" is after "h"): ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["Slovak"]@@@{{"chorvátčina", "hebrejčina"}, {"čeština", "hebrejčina"}} Out[1]= {-1, 1} ``` ### Properties & Relations (4) Use the operator form of ``AlphabeticOrder`` to confirm that ``Alphabet`` of the same language is already ordered: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["Spanish"]@@@Partition[Alphabet["Spanish"], 2, 1] Out[1]= {1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1} ``` --- The results from ``AlphabeticOrder`` and ``Order`` may differ for non-English languages: ```wl In[1]:= {Order["італьянская", "японская"], AlphabeticOrder["італьянская", "японская", "Belarusian"]} Out[1]= {-1, 1} ``` --- For some languages, using ``IgnoreDiacritics`` may give a different result than applying ``RemoveDiacritics`` first: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["z", "å", Entity["Language", "Swedish"], IgnoreDiacritics -> True] Out[1]= 1 In[2]:= AlphabeticOrder["z", "å"//RemoveDiacritics, Entity["Language", "Swedish"]] Out[2]= -1 ``` --- ``AlphabeticSort`` uses ``AlphabeticOrder`` as its ordering function: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticSort[{"Arboga", "Alingsås", "Åmål", "Ängelholm", "Askersund", "Arvika"}, "Swedish"] Out[1]= {"Alingsås", "Arboga", "Arvika", "Askersund", "Åmål", "Ängelholm"} In[2]:= Sort[{"Arboga", "Alingsås", "Åmål", "Ängelholm", "Askersund", "Arvika"}, AlphabeticOrder["Swedish"][#1, #2] ≥ 0&] Out[2]= {"Alingsås", "Arboga", "Arvika", "Askersund", "Åmål", "Ängelholm"} ``` ### Possible Issues (1) Different characters that represent the same letter in some languages are considered exact equivalents: ```wl In[1]:= AlphabeticOrder["ţ", "ț", "Romanian"] Out[1]= 0 In[2]:= AlphabeticOrder["ţ", "ț", "Latin"] Out[2]= 1 ``` ### Neat Examples (1) Find all Unicode characters considered equivalent to "a" without taking into account diacritics or case: ```wl In[1]:= lettersA = Select[CharacterRange[1, 65535], AlphabeticOrder["a", #, IgnoreDiacritics -> True, IgnoreCase -> True] == 0&] Out[1]= {"A", "a", "ª", "À", "Á", "Â", "Ã", "Ä", "Å", "à", "á", "â", "ã", "ä", "å", "Ā", "ā", "Ă", "ă", "Ą", "ą", "Ǎ", "ǎ", "Ǟ", "ǟ", "Ǡ", "ǡ", "Ǻ", "ǻ", "Ȁ", "ȁ", "Ȃ", "ȃ", "Ȧ", "ȧ", "ͣ", "ᴬ", "ᵃ", "ᷓ", "ᷲ", "Ḁ", "ḁ", "Ạ", "ạ", "Ả", "ả", "Ấ", "ấ", "Ầ", "ầ", "Ẩ", "ẩ", "Ẫ", "ẫ", "Ậ", "ậ", "Ắ", "ắ", "Ằ", "ằ", "Ẳ", "ẳ", "Ẵ", "ẵ", "Ặ", "ặ", "ₐ", "Å", "Ⓐ", "ⓐ", "Ꞛ", "ꞛ", "Ａ", "ａ"} ``` Sort alphabetically: ```wl In[2]:= sortedA = Sort[lettersA, AlphabeticOrder[##] ≥ 0&] Out[2]= {"a", "ａ", "ͣ", "ⓐ", "ª", "ᵃ", "ₐ", "A", "Ａ", "Ⓐ", "ᴬ", "á", "Á", "à", "À", "ă", "Ă", "ắ", "Ắ", "ằ", "Ằ", "ẵ", "Ẵ", "ẳ", "Ẳ", "â", "Â", "ấ", "Ấ", "ầ", "Ầ", "ẫ", "Ẫ", "ẩ", "Ẩ", "ǎ", "Ǎ", "å", "Å", "Å", "ǻ", "Ǻ", "ä", "ᷲ", "ꞛ", "Ä", "Ꞛ", "ǟ", "Ǟ", "ã", "Ã", "ȧ", "Ȧ", "ǡ", "Ǡ", "ą", "Ą", "ā", "Ā", "ả", "Ả", "ȁ", "Ȁ", "ȃ", "Ȃ", "ạ", "Ạ", "ặ", "Ặ", "ậ", "Ậ", "ḁ", "Ḁ", "ᷓ"} ``` Split by case: ```wl In[3]:= GatherBy[sortedA, AlphabeticOrder[IgnoreDiacritics -> True, IgnoreCase -> False]["a", #]&] Out[3]= {{"a", "ａ", "ͣ", "ⓐ", "ª", "ᵃ", "ₐ", "á", "à", "ă", "ắ", "ằ", "ẵ", "ẳ", "â", "ấ", "ầ", "ẫ", "ẩ", "ǎ", "å", "ǻ", "ä", "ᷲ", "ꞛ", "ǟ", "ã", "ȧ", "ǡ", "ą", "ā", "ả", "ȁ", "ȃ", "ạ", "ặ", "ậ", "ḁ", "ᷓ"}, {"A", "Ａ", "Ⓐ", "ᴬ", "Á", "À", "Ă", "Ắ", "Ằ", "Ẵ", "Ẳ", "Â", "Ấ", "Ầ", "Ẫ", "Ẩ", "Ǎ", "Å", "Å", "Ǻ", "Ä", "Ꞛ", "Ǟ", "Ã", "Ȧ", "Ǡ", "Ą", "Ā", "Ả", "Ȁ", "Ȃ", "Ạ", "Ặ", "Ậ", "Ḁ"}} ``` ## See Also * [`AlphabeticSort`](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AlphabeticSort.en.md) * [`Order`](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Order.en.md) * [`LexicographicOrder`](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LexicographicOrder.en.md) * [`NumericalOrder`](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NumericalOrder.en.md) * [`Alphabet`](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Alphabet.en.md) * [`LanguageData`](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LanguageData.en.md) ## Related Guides * [International Character Sets](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/InternationalCharacterSets.en.md) * [Linguistic Data](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/LinguisticData.en.md) * [Testing Expressions](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/TestingExpressions.en.md) * [String Operations](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/StringOperations.en.md) ## History * [Introduced in 2015 (10.3)](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/SummaryOfNewFeaturesIn103.en.md)