On Sunday 20 January 2008 01:07, Tom Lane wrote: > "Luca Arzeni" <l.arzeni@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > > Is there any way to consider blanks meaningfull AND sort properly locale > > specific vowels ? > > This isn't a Postgres question, it's a locale question. (If you try, > you'll find that sort(1) sorts the same as we do in any given locale.) > > I imagine you could create a custom locale definition that acts this > way, but I have no idea about the degree of wizardry involved. > "man localedef" would probably be a place to start. > > If you come up with a reasonably simple recipe for this, please post > it here, as you're not the first to have asked and you likely won't > be the last ... > > regards, tom lane Thanks Tom, I gave a look at localedef, but it seems too much complex for my understanding. I understood that (under debian etch) lc_collate is defined for posix in file: /usr/share/i18n/locales/POSIX Here actually I can find an undestandable LC_COLLATE directive that defines all chars one after the other in ASCII order. Thats fine. Then I looked at it_IT locale definition and noticed that this locale (and many if not all other locales, as far as I can see) have a collation order inherited from the file: /usr/share/i18n/locales/iso14651_t1 This seems to be a iso standard, but it is not easily understandable by me. It includes macros and defines also sorting for many character sets, including arabic and grec. I think I've found the problem (space is actually ignored and put in a separate list from other chars), but I'm not able to understand what shoud be the proper value to put in the row. At line 537 I can read the following lines: order_start <SPECIAL>;forward;backward;forward;forward,position # # Tout caractère non précisément défini sera considéré comme caractère spécial # et considéré uniquement au dernier niveau. # # Any character not precisely specified will be considered as a special # character and considered only at the last level. # <U0000>......<U7FFFFFFF> IGNORE;IGNORE;IGNORE;<U0000>......<U7FFFFFFF> # # SYMB. N° GLY # <U0020> IGNORE;IGNORE;IGNORE;<U0020> # 32 <SP> so I guess space is beeing ignored. At line 810 I can read: <U2079> <9>;<BAS>;<EMI>;IGNORE # 197 <9S> # <U0061> <a>;<BAS>;<MIN>;IGNORE # 198 a <U00AA> <a>;<PCL>;<EMI>;IGNORE # 199 ª <U00E1> <a>;<ACA>;<MIN>;IGNORE # 200 á <U00E0> <a>;<GRA>;<MIN>;IGNORE # 201 à <U00E2> <a>;<CIR>;<MIN>;IGNORE # 202 â <U00E3> <a>;<TIL>;<MIN>;IGNORE # 203 ã <U00E4> <a>;<REU>;<MIN>;IGNORE # 204 ä <U00E5> <a>;<RNE>;<MIN>;IGNORE # 205 å So my guess is that if I could put properly the space AFTER the commented line and before the linte that starts with <U0061> (that is, before the lower "a") I could solve the problem. May be that some locale wizard is listening around and can help me? Thanks, Luca -- Ing. Luca Arzeni Amadego S.R.L. tel.: 02 6193672 cell.: 339 8350298 mailto: l.arzeni@xxxxxxxxxxx === Start-of Internet E-mail Confidentiality Footer === L'uso non autorizzato di questo messaggio o dei suoi allegati e' vietato e potrebbe costituire reato. Se ha ricevuto per errore questo messaggio, La preghiamo di informarci e di distruggerlo immediatamente coi suoi allegati. Le dichiarazioni contenute in questo messaggio o nei suoi allegati non impegnano Amadego S.R.L. nei confronti del destinatario o di terzi. Amadego S.R.L. non si assume alcuna responsabilita' per eventuali intercettazioni, modifiche o danneggiamenti del presente messaggio. Any unauthorized use of this e-mail or any of its attachments is prohibited and could constitute an offence. If you are not the intended addressee please advise immediately the sender and destroy the message and its attachments. The contents of this message shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by Amadego S.R.L. Amadego S.R.L. does not accept liability for corruption, interception or amendment, if any, or the consequences thereof. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match