Packageflash.globalization
Classpublic final class Collator
InheritanceCollator Inheritance Object

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

The Collator class provides locale-sensitive string comparison capabilities.

This class uses the string comparison services provided by the operating system. The comparisons differ according to the locale identifier that is provided when the class instance is created. ActionScript stores strings using the Unicode character set. The Boolean string comparison operators (==, !=, <, <=, >, >=) use Unicode code points for comparison. In most cases the resulting sort order doesn't match the conventions of a particular language and region, and thus should not be used to sort strings that are presented in a user interface. In contrast the comparison methods in this class provide an order that adheres to these conventions.

Here are some examples where the sort order differs depending on the language:

Sort orders can even differ within the same language and region depending on the usage. For example, in German there is a different sort order used for names in a phone book versus words in a dictionary. In Chinese and Japanese there are different ways of sorting the ideographic characters: by pronunciation or by the ideographic radical and the number of strokes uses in the glyph. In Spanish and Georgian, there is a difference between modern and traditional sorting.

The comparison methods in this class provide two main usage modes. The initialMode parameter of the Collator() constructor controls these modes. The default "sorting" mode is for sorting items that are displayed to an end user. In this mode, comparison is more strict to ensure that items that are otherwise the same are sorted in a consistent manner. For example, uppercase letters and lowercase letters do not compare as equal. In the "matching" mode the comparison is more lenient. For example in this mode uppercase and lowercase letters are treated equally. Here's an example that demonstrates both of these modes:

 
     var sortingCollator:Collator = new Collator("en-US", CollatorMode.SORTING);
     var words:Array = new  Array("Airplane" , "airplane", "boat", "Boat");
     words.sort(sortingCollator.compare);
     trace(words);
              
     var matchingCollator:Collator = new Collator("en-US", CollatorMode.MATCHING);
     if (matchingCollator.equals("Car", "car")) {
       trace("The words match!");
     }
     

Even when providing a locale ID parameter to the constructor as shown above, collation behavior can differ by user based on the user's operating system settings and whether a fallback locale is used when the requested locale is not supported.

View the examples.



Public Properties
 PropertyDefined by
  actualLocaleIDName : String
[read-only] The name of the actual locale ID used by this Collator object.
Collator
 Inheritedconstructor : Object
A reference to the class object or constructor function for a given object instance.
Object
  ignoreCase : Boolean
When this property is set to true, identical strings and strings that differ only in the case of the letters are evaluated as equal.
Collator
  ignoreCharacterWidth : Boolean
When this property is true, full-width and half-width forms of some Chinese and Japanese characters are evaluated as equal.
Collator
  ignoreDiacritics : Boolean
When this property is set to true, strings that use the same base characters but different accents or other diacritic marks are evaluated as equal.
Collator
  ignoreKanaType : Boolean
When this property is set to true, strings that differ only by the type of kana character being used are treated as equal.
Collator
  ignoreSymbols : Boolean
When this property is set to is true, symbol characters such as spaces, currency symbols, math symbols, and other types of symbols are ignored when sorting or matching.
Collator
  lastOperationStatus : String
[read-only] The status of the most recent operation that this Collator object performed.
Collator
  numericComparison : Boolean
Controls how numeric values embedded in strings are handled during string comparison.
Collator
 Inheritedprototype : Object
[static] A reference to the prototype object of a class or function object.
Object
  requestedLocaleIDName : String
[read-only] The name of the requested locale ID that was passed to the constructor of this Collator object.
Collator
Public Methods
 MethodDefined by
  
Collator(requestedLocaleIDName:String, initialMode:String = "sorting")
Constructs a new Collator object to provide string comparisons according to the conventions of a specified locale.
Collator
  
compare(string1:String, string2:String):int
Compares two strings and returns an integer value indicating whether the first string is less than, equal to, or greater than the second string.
Collator
  
equals(string1:String, string2:String):Boolean
Compares two strings and returns a Boolean value indicating whether the strings are equal.
Collator
  
[static] Lists all of the locale ID names supported by this class.
Collator
 Inherited
Indicates whether an object has a specified property defined.
Object
 Inherited
Indicates whether an instance of the Object class is in the prototype chain of the object specified as the parameter.
Object
 Inherited
Indicates whether the specified property exists and is enumerable.
Object
 Inherited
Sets the availability of a dynamic property for loop operations.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the string representation of this object, formatted according to locale-specific conventions.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the string representation of the specified object.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the primitive value of the specified object.
Object
Property detail
actualLocaleIDNameproperty
actualLocaleIDName:String  [read-only]

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

The name of the actual locale ID used by this Collator object.

There are three possibilities for the value of the name, depending on operating system and the value of the requestedLocaleIDName parameter passed to the Collator() constructor.

  1. If the requested locale was not LocaleID.DEFAULT and the operating system provides support for the requested locale, then the name returned is the same as the requestedLocaleIDName property.
  2. If LocaleID.DEFAULT was used as the value for the requestedLocaleIDName parameter to the constructor, then the name of the current locale specified by the user's operating system is used. The LocaleID.DEFAULT value preserves user's customized setting in the OS. Passing an explicit value as the requestedLocaleIDName parameter does not necessarily give the same result as using the LocaleID.DEFAULT even if the two locale ID names are the same. The user might have customized the locale settings on their machine, and by requesting an explicit locale ID name rather than using LocaleID.DEFAULT your application would not retrieve those customized settings.

    For example:

             var fmt:Collator = new Collator(LocaleID.DEFAULT);
             var aliName:String = fmt.actualLocaleIDName;
             

    In the above example, aliName is the name of the locale corresponding to the user's current operating systems settings (e.g. "it-IT" if the user's locale is set to Italian-Italy), and not "i-default" (the name of the LocaleID.DEFAULT locale).

  3. If the system does not support the requestedLocaleIDName specified in the constructor then a fallback locale ID name is provided.

    For Example:

             var fmt:Collator = new Collator("fr-CA");         
             var aliName:String = fmt.actualLocaleIDName;
             

    Assuming that the operating system in the example above does not support the "fr-CA" (French-Canada) locale ID, a fallback is used. In that case the aliName variable contains the fallback locale ID "fr-FR" (French-France).

Implementation
    public function get actualLocaleIDName():String

See also

ignoreCaseproperty 
ignoreCase:Boolean  [read-write]

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

When this property is set to true, identical strings and strings that differ only in the case of the letters are evaluated as equal. For example, compare("ABC", "abc") returns true when the ignoreCase property is set to true.

The case conversion of the string follows the rules for the specified locale.

When the ignoreCase property is false then upper- and lowercase characters are not equal to one another.

When this property is assigned a value and there are no errors or warnings, the lastOperationStatus property is set to:

Otherwise, the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the constants defined in the LastOperationStatus class.

The default value is true when the Collator() constructor's initialMode parameter is set to Collator.MATCHING. The default value is false when the Collator() constructor's initialMode parameter is set to Collator.SORTING.

Implementation
    public function get ignoreCase():Boolean
    public function set ignoreCase(value:Boolean):void

See also

ignoreCharacterWidthproperty 
ignoreCharacterWidth:Boolean  [read-write]

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

When this property is true, full-width and half-width forms of some Chinese and Japanese characters are evaluated as equal.

For compatibility with existing standards for Chinese and Japanese character sets, Unicode provides character codes for both full-width and half width-forms of some characters. For example, when the ignoreCharacterWidth property is set to true, compare("Aア", "Aア") returns true.

If the ignoreCharacterWidth property is set to false, then full-width and half-width forms are not equal to one another.

When this property is assigned a value and there are no errors or warnings, the lastOperationStatus property is set to:

Otherwise the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the constants defined in the LastOperationStatus class.

The default value is false.

Implementation
    public function get ignoreCharacterWidth():Boolean
    public function set ignoreCharacterWidth(value:Boolean):void

See also

ignoreDiacriticsproperty 
ignoreDiacritics:Boolean  [read-write]

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

When this property is set to true, strings that use the same base characters but different accents or other diacritic marks are evaluated as equal. For example compare("coté", "côte") returns true when the ignoreDiacritics property is set to true.

When the ignoreDiacritics is set to false then base characters with diacritic marks or accents are not considered equal to one another.

When this property is assigned a value and there are no errors or warnings, the lastOperationStatus property is set to:

Otherwise the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the constants defined in the LastOperationStatus class.

The default value is false.

Implementation
    public function get ignoreDiacritics():Boolean
    public function set ignoreDiacritics(value:Boolean):void

See also

ignoreKanaTypeproperty 
ignoreKanaType:Boolean  [read-write]

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

When this property is set to true, strings that differ only by the type of kana character being used are treated as equal. For example, compare("カナ", "かな") returns true when the ignoreKanaType property is set to true.

If the ignoreKanaType is set to false then hiragana and katakana characters that refer to the same syllable are not equal to one another.

When this property is assigned a value and there are no errors or warnings, the lastOperationStatus property is set to:

Otherwise the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the constants defined in the LastOperationStatus class.

The default value is false.

Implementation
    public function get ignoreKanaType():Boolean
    public function set ignoreKanaType(value:Boolean):void

See also

ignoreSymbolsproperty 
ignoreSymbols:Boolean  [read-write]

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

When this property is set to is true, symbol characters such as spaces, currency symbols, math symbols, and other types of symbols are ignored when sorting or matching. For example the strings "OBrian", "O'Brian", and "O Brian" would all be treated as equal when the ignoreSymbols property is set to true.

If the ignoreSymbols property is false then symbol characters are considered in string comparisons.

When this property is assigned a value and there are no errors or warnings, the lastOperationStatus property is set to:

Otherwise the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the constants defined in the LastOperationStatus class.

The default value is false.

Implementation
    public function get ignoreSymbols():Boolean
    public function set ignoreSymbols(value:Boolean):void

See also

lastOperationStatusproperty 
lastOperationStatus:String  [read-only]

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

The status of the most recent operation that this Collator object performed. The lastOperationStatus is set whenever the constructor or a method of this class is called, or when a property is set. For the possible values see the description under each method.

Implementation
    public function get lastOperationStatus():String

See also

numericComparisonproperty 
numericComparison:Boolean  [read-write]

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

Controls how numeric values embedded in strings are handled during string comparison.

When the numericComparison property is set to true, the compare method converts numbers that appear in strings to numerical values for comparison.

When this property is set to false, the comparison treats numbers as character codes and sort them according to the rules for sorting characters in the specified locale.

For example, when this property is true for the locale ID "en-US", then the strings "version1", "version10", and "version2" are sorted into the following order: version1 < version2 < version10.

When this property is false for "en-US", those same strings are sorted into the following order: version1 < version10 < version2.

When this property is assigned a value and there are no errors or warnings, the lastOperationStatus property is set to:

Otherwise the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the constants defined in the LastOperationStatus class.

The default value is false.

Implementation
    public function get numericComparison():Boolean
    public function set numericComparison(value:Boolean):void

See also

requestedLocaleIDNameproperty 
requestedLocaleIDName:String  [read-only]

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

The name of the requested locale ID that was passed to the constructor of this Collator object.

If the LocaleID.DEFAULT value was used then the name returned is "i-default". The actual locale used can differ from the requested locale when a fallback locale is applied. The name of the actual locale can be retrieved using the actualLocaleIDName property.

Implementation
    public function get requestedLocaleIDName():String

See also

Constructor detail
Collator()constructor
public function Collator(requestedLocaleIDName:String, initialMode:String = "sorting")

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

Constructs a new Collator object to provide string comparisons according to the conventions of a specified locale.

If the current operating system does not support the locale ID that is passed in the requestedLocaleIDName parameter, then a fallback locale is determined. If a fallback is used then the lastOperationStatus property is set to indicate the type of fallback.

The initialMode parameter sets various collation options for general uses. It can be set to one of the following values:

Here is an example of a sorted list created using a Collator with the locale ID "en-US" (English in US) and the CollatorMode.SORTING option:

A
a
Ä
ä
AE
ae
Æ
æ
B
b
C
c
ç

As shown above, all characters are treated as if they have different values, but in linguistic order.

Here is an example of a sorted list created using Collator with the locale ID "en-US" (English in US) and the CollatorMode.MATCHING option:

A a Ä ä A a
AE ae Æ æ
B b B b
C c ç C c

Legend: Characters in a same row are treated as equivalent characters during comparison/sorting. For example, "a" (U+0040 = LATIN SMALL LETTER A) and "Ä" (U+00C4 = LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS) are considered to be equal.

As shown above, some characters are in linguistic order and are treated as if they have the same character value.

For finer control over sorting order, you can change collator properties such as Collator.ignoreCase or Collator.ignoreDiacritics.

For reference, here is a corresponding sorting example done using the standard Array.sort(), which is not locale-aware:

A
AE
B
C
a
ae
b
c
Ä
Æ
ä
æ
ç

As you can see above, all characters are sorted simply in Unicode numeric value order. It does not make much sense linguistically.

To use the user's current operating system preferences, pass the static value LocaleID.DEFAULT in the requestedLocaleIDName parameter to the constructor.

Some locales have several sort order variants. For example, in German one sort order is used for phone books and another sort order is used for dictionaries. In Chinese, words are commonly supported by transliteration of the characters into the pinyin. These different sort orders can be selected by including the "collation" keyword in the string that is passed in the requestedLocaleIDName parameter to the constructor.

         var germanPhonebook:LocaleID = new LocaleID("de-DE@collation=phonebook");
         var chinesePinyin:LocaleID = new LocaleID("zh-Hant@collation=pinyin");
         

Possible values for the collation string are as follows, with the affected languages shown in parentheses:

Collation stringDescription
standard The default ordering for each language.
phonebook For a phonebook-style ordering (used in German).
pinyin Pinyin ordering for Latin and for CJK characters; that is, an ordering for CJK characters based on a character-by-character transliteration into a pinyin. (used in Chinese)
traditional For a traditional-style sort (used in Spanish)
stroke Pinyin ordering for Latin, stroke order for CJK characters (used in Chinese)
direct (used in Hindi)
big5han Pinyin ordering for Latin, big5 character set ordering for CJK characters. (used in Chinese)
gb2312han Pinyin ordering for Latin, gb2312han character set ordering for CJK characters. (used in Chinese)
unihan Pinyin ordering for Latin, Unihan radical-stroke ordering for CJK characters. (used in Chinese)

If the host platform does not support the requested collation type, then a fallback is used and the lastOperationStatus property is set to indicate that a fallback was selected. You can use the actualLocaleIDName property to determine the value that was used as a fallback, as shown in the following example:

         var collator:Collator = new Collator("fr-FR");
         if (collator.lastOperationStatus == LastOperationStatus.USING_FALLBACK_WARNING)
         {
           trace ("Using fallback locale: " + collator.actualLocaleIDName);
         }
         

When the constructor completes successfully, then the lastOperationStatus property is set to:

When the requested locale ID is not available, then the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the following:

Otherwise the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the constants defined in the LastOperationStatus class.

For details on the warnings listed above and other possible values of lastOperationStatus, see the descriptions in the LastOperationStatus class.

Parameters
requestedLocaleIDName:StringString to be used by this Collator object.
 
initialMode:String (default = "sorting") — A string value to specify the initial collation mode. The default value is CollatorMode.SORTING. See the CollatorMode class for a list of available modes.

Throws
TypeError — when the requestedLocaleIDName parameter is null.
 
ArgumentError — when the requestedLocaleIDName parameter contains an invalid value.

See also

Method detail
compare()method
public function compare(string1:String, string2:String):int

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

Compares two strings and returns an integer value indicating whether the first string is less than, equal to, or greater than the second string. The comparison uses the sort order rules for the locale ID that was specified in the Collator() constructor.

When this method is called and it completes successfully, the lastOperationStatus property is set to:

Otherwise the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the constants defined in the LastOperationStatus class.

Parameters
string1:String — First comparison string.
 
string2:String — Second comparison string.

Returns
int — An integer value indicating whether the first string is less than, equal to, or greater than the second string.
  • If the return value is negative, string1 is less than string2.
  • If the return value is zero, string1 is equal to string2.
  • If the return value is positive, string1 is larger than string2.

Throws
TypeError — when a required parameter is null.
 
ArgumentError — when a parameter contains an invalid value.

See also

equals()method 
public function equals(string1:String, string2:String):Boolean

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

Compares two strings and returns a Boolean value indicating whether the strings are equal. The comparison uses the sort order rules for the locale ID that was specified in the Collator() constructor.

When this method is called and it completes successfully, the lastOperationStatus property is set to:

Otherwise the lastOperationStatus property is set to one of the constants defined in the LastOperationStatus class.

Parameters
string1:String — First comparison string.
 
string2:String — Second comparison string.

Returns
Boolean — A Boolean value indicating whether the strings are equal (true) or unequal (false).

Throws
TypeError — when a required parameter is null.
 
ArgumentError — when a parameter contains an invalid value.

See also

getAvailableLocaleIDNames()method 
public static function getAvailableLocaleIDNames():Vector.<String>

Language version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime version: AIR 2

Lists all of the locale ID names supported by this class.

If this class is not supported at all on the current operating system, this method returns a null value.

Returns
Vector.<String> — A vector of strings containing all of the locale ID names supported by this class.
Examples
examples\CollatorExample1
The following example shows sorting results that differ based on the locale. The example takes the following steps:
  1. Iterates through an array of locale ID names, including the default locale ID for the operating system (as specified by LocaleID.DEFAULT)
  2. Creates a Collator object for each locale ID name using "sorting" mode (the default).
  3. Displays the requested and actual locale ID names and the value of the lastOperationStatus property so you can see if a fallback locale was used.
  4. Sorts a data array using each collator and displays the results. The resulting order is different for each locale.

package {
    import flash.globalization.Collator;
    import flash.globalization.LocaleID;

    public class CollatorExample1
    {
        public var col:Collator;
        
        public function CollatorExample1():void
        {        
            var localeNames:Array = [LocaleID.DEFAULT,
                                     "de-DE", "sv-SE",
                                     "fr-FR", "lt-LT",
                                     "es-ES"];
            
            var testSortData:Array = [
                "y ", "i ", "k ", // Latvian
                "acxa ", "acha ", "adxa ", // es_traditional
                "n ", "ö ", "o ", "z ", "vu ", "wo ", // sw
                "däd ", "daed ", // de
                "öf ", "of ", // de_dictionary
                "côte ", "coté " // fr
            ];
            
            for each (var localeName:String in localeNames) {
            
                col = new Collator(localeName);
                
                trace("LocaleID requested: " + col.requestedLocaleIDName 
                       + "; actual: " + col.actualLocaleIDName);
                       
                trace("Last Operation Status: " + col.lastOperationStatus );
                
                var result:Array = testSortData.sort(col.compare);
                        
                trace ("sorted data: " + result); 
            }
        }      
    }
}
examples\CollatorExample2
The following examples shows uses a Collator object to control the behavior of string comparisons. The example takes the following steps:
  1. Creates a Collator object for the user's default locale using "matching" mode.
  2. Alternately sets the Collator.ignoreDiacritics property to false and true
  3. Compares sets of strings that contain diacritics and upper case and lower case characters.
  4. Shows how the comparisons change when the Collator.ignoreDiacritics and Collator.ignoreCase properties change.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.globalization.Collator;
    import flash.globalization.CollatorMode;
    import flash.globalization.LocaleID;
    
    public class CollatorExample2 extends Sprite
    {
        public var col:Collator;
        public var testMatchData:Array = ["cote", "Cote", "côte", "coté"];
        public var wordToMatch:String = "Cote";
        
        public function CollatorExample2()
        {
            col = new Collator( LocaleID.DEFAULT, CollatorMode.MATCHING );

            trace("LocaleID requested: " + col.requestedLocaleIDName 
                    + "; actual: " + col.actualLocaleIDName);
                    
            trace("Last Operation Status: " + col.lastOperationStatus );

            trace('\n' + "ignoreCase = " + col.ignoreCase);
            trace("ignoreDiacritics = " + col.ignoreDiacritics);

            compareString(testMatchData, wordToMatch) // All variations of the word cote match

            col.ignoreDiacritics = false;
            trace('\n' + "ignoreDiacritics = false");

            compareString(testMatchData, wordToMatch) // Variations with different diacritics will not match

            col.ignoreCase = false;
            trace('\n' + "ignoreCase = false");

            compareString(testMatchData, wordToMatch) // Variations with different case will not match
        }
    
        private function compareString(stringArray:Array, keyword:String):void
        {
            for each(var s:String in stringArray)
            {
                if(col.equals(s, keyword))    
                {
                    trace(keyword + " = " + s);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}