colltbl(1M) colltbl(1M)
NAME
colltbl - create collation database
SYNOPSIS
colltbl [file|-]
DESCRIPTION
The colltbl command takes as input a specification file, file, that
describes the collating sequence for a particular language and creates
a database that can be read by strxfrm(3C) and strcoll(3C).
strxfrm(3C) transforms its second argument and places the result in
its first argument. The transformed string is such that it can be
correctly ordered with other transformed strings by using strcmp(3C),
strncmp(3C) or memcmp(3C). strcoll(3C) transforms its arguments and
does a comparison.
If no input file is supplied, stdin is read.
The output file produced contains the database with collating sequence
information in a form usable by system commands and routines. The name
of this output file is the value you assign to the keyword codeset
read in from file. Before this file can be used, it must be installed
in the /usr/lib/locale/locale directory with the name LCCOLLATE by
someone who is superuser or a member of group bin. locale corresponds
to the language area whose collation sequence is described in file.
This file must be readable by user, group, and other; no other permis-
sions should be set. To use the collating sequence information in this
file, set the LCCOLLATE environment variable appropriately [see
environ(5) or setlocale(3C)].
The colltbl command can support languages whose collating sequence can
be completely described by the following cases:
- Ordering of single characters within the codeset. For example, in
Swedish, V is sorted after U, before X and with W (V and W are con-
sidered identical as far as sorting is concerned).
- Ordering of "double characters" in the collation sequence. For
example, in Spanish, ch and ll are collated after c and l, respec-
tively.
- Ordering of a single character as if it consists of two characters.
For example, in German, the "sharp s", ß, is sorted as ss. This is
a special instance of the next case below.
- Substitution of one character string with another character string.
In the example above, the string ß is replaced with ss during sort-
ing.
- Ignoring certain characters in the codeset during collation. For
example, if the hyphen "-" were ignored during collation, then the
strings re-locate and relocate would be equal.
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colltbl(1M) colltbl(1M)
- Secondary ordering between characters. In the case where two char-
acters are sorted together in the collation sequence, (i.e. they
have the same "primary" ordering), there is sometimes a secondary
ordering that is used if two strings are identical except for char-
acters that have the same primary ordering. For example, in French,
the letters e and è have the same primary ordering but e comes
before è in the secondary ordering. Thus the word des would be
ordered before dès.
The specification file consists of three types of statements:
1. codeset filename
filename is the name of the output file to be created by colltbl.
2. order is orderlist
orderlist is a list of symbols, separated by semicolons, that
defines the collating sequence. The special symbol ". . ." speci-
fies symbols that are lexically sequential in a short-hand form.
For example,
order is a;b;c;d; . . . ;x;y;z
would specify the list of lowercase letters. Of course, this could
be further compressed to just a; . . . ;z.
A symbol can be up to two bytes in length and can be represented in
any one of the following ways:
- the symbol itself (e.g. a for the lowercase letter a),
- in octal representation (e.g. \141 or 0141 for the letter a), or
- in hexadecimal representation (e.g. \x61 or 0x61 for the letter
a).
Any combination of these may be used as well.
The backslash character (\) is used for continuation. No characters
are permitted after the backslash character.
Symbols enclosed in parentheses are assigned the same primary ord-
ering but different secondary ordering. Symbols enclosed in curly
brackets are assigned only the same primary ordering. For example,
order is a;b;c;ch;d;(e;è);f; . . . ;z;\
{1; . . . ;9};A; . . . ;Z
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colltbl(1M) colltbl(1M)
In the above example, e and è are assigned the same primary order-
ing and different secondary ordering, digits 1 through 9 are
assigned the same primary ordering and no secondary ordering. Only
primary ordering is assigned to the remaining symbols. Notice how
double letters can be specified in the collating sequence (letter
ch comes between c and d).
If a character is not included in the order is statement it is
excluded from the ordering and will be ignored during sorting.
3. substitute string with repl
The substitute statement substitutes the string string with the
string repl. This can be used, for example, to provide rules to
sort the abbreviated month names numerically:
substitute "Jan" with "01"
substitute "Feb" with "02"
. . .
substitute "Dec" with "12"
A simpler use of the substitute statement that was mentioned above
was to substitute a single character with two characters, as with
the substitution of ß with ss in German.
The substitute statement is optional. The order is and codeset state-
ments must appear in the specification file.
Any lines in the specification file with a # in the first column are
treated as comments and are ignored. Blank lines are also ignored.
EXAMPLE
The following example shows the collation specification required to
support a hypothetical telephone book sorting sequence.
The sorting sequence is defined by the following rules:
a) Uppercase and lowercase letters must be sorted together, but upper-
case letters have precedence over lowercase letters.
b) All special characters and punctuation should be ignored.
c) Digits must be sorted as their alphabetic counterparts (e.g. 0 as
zero, 1 as one).
d) The Ch, ch, CH combinations must be collated between C and D.
e) V and W, v and w must be collated together.
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The input specification file to colltbl will contain:
codeset telephone
order is A;a;B;b;C;c;CH;Ch;ch;D;d;E;e;F;f;\
G;g;H;h:I;i;J;j;K;k;L;l;M;m;N;n;O;o;P;p;\
Q;q;R;r;S;s;T;t;U;u;{V;W};{v;w};X;x;Y;y;Z;z
substitute "0" with "zero"
substitute "1" with "one"
substitute "2" with "two"
substitute "3" with "three"
substitute "4" with "four"
substitute "5" with "five"
substitute "6" with "six"
substitute "7" with "seven"
substitute "8" with "eight"
substitute "9" with "nine"
LOCALE
The LCMESSAGES environment variable governs the language in which
message texts are displayed.
The LCCTYPE environment variable governs character classes, character
conversion (shifting), and the behavior of character classes in regu-
lar expressions.
If LCMESSAGES or LCCTYPE is undefined or is defined as the null
string, it defaults to the value of LANG. If LANG is likewise unde-
fined or null, the system acts as if it were not internationalized.
If any of the locale variables has an invalid value, the system acts
as if none of the variables was set.
The LCALL environment variable governs the entire locale. LCALL
takes precedence over all the other environment variables which affect
internationalization.
FILES
/lib/locale/locale/LCCOLLATE
LCCOLLATE database for locale
/usr/lib/locale/C/colltblC
input file used to construct LCCOLLATE in the default locale
SEE ALSO
memory(3C), setlocale(3C), strcoll(3C), string(3C), strxfrm(3C),
environ(5).
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