flash.globalization.Collator - Adobe® AIR® API Reference for HTML Developers

window.runtime property	window.runtime.flash.globalization.Collator

Inheritance	Collator Object

Runtime Versions:

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:

In English, lowercase a is before uppercase A and uppercase A is before lowercase b.
ö is after z in Swedish, whereas in German ö is after o
ch is sorted as one character between c-d in traditional Spanish
accented characters in French are sorted according to the last accent difference instead of the first accent difference: for example, cote < côte < coté < côté instead of cote < coté < côte < côté

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.

Properties

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	Property		Defined By
		actualLocaleIDName : String [read-only] The name of the actual locale ID used by this Collator object.	Collator
		constructor : 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
		prototype : 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

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	Method		Defined 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
		getAvailableLocaleIDNames():Vector.<String> [static] Lists all of the locale ID names supported by this class.	Collator
		hasOwnProperty(name:String):Boolean Indicates whether an object has a specified property defined.	Object
		isPrototypeOf(theClass:Object):Boolean Indicates whether an instance of the Object class is in the prototype chain of the object specified as the parameter.	Object
		propertyIsEnumerable(name:String):Boolean Indicates whether the specified property exists and is enumerable.	Object
		setPropertyIsEnumerable(name:String, isEnum:Boolean = true):void Sets the availability of a dynamic property for loop operations.	Object
		toLocaleString():String Returns the string representation of this object, formatted according to locale-specific conventions.	Object
		toString():String Returns the string representation of the specified object.	Object
		valueOf():Object Returns the primitive value of the specified object.	Object

Property Detail

actualLocaleIDName

property

actualLocaleIDName:String [read-only]

Runtime Versions:

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.

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

See also

LocaleID
requestedLocaleIDName

ignoreCase

property

ignoreCase:Boolean

Runtime Versions:

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:

LastOperationStatus.NO_ERROR

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. false when the Collator() constructor's initialMode parameter is set to Collator.SORTING..

ignoreCharacterWidth

property

ignoreCharacterWidth:Boolean

Runtime Versions:

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:

LastOperationStatus.NO_ERROR

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

The default value is false.

ignoreDiacritics

property

ignoreDiacritics:Boolean

Runtime Versions:

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:

LastOperationStatus.NO_ERROR

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

The default value is false.

ignoreKanaType

property

ignoreKanaType:Boolean

Runtime Versions:

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:

LastOperationStatus.NO_ERROR

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

The default value is false.

ignoreSymbols

property

ignoreSymbols:Boolean

Runtime Versions:

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:

LastOperationStatus.NO_ERROR

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

The default value is false.

lastOperationStatus

property

lastOperationStatus:String [read-only]

Runtime Versions:

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.

See also

LastOperationStatus

numericComparison

property

numericComparison:Boolean

Runtime Versions:

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:

LastOperationStatus.NO_ERROR

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

The default value is false.

requestedLocaleIDName

property

requestedLocaleIDName:String [read-only]

Runtime Versions:

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.

See also

LocaleID
actualLocaleIDName

Constructor Detail

Collator

()

Constructor

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

Runtime Versions:

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:

CollatorMode.SORTING: sets collation options for general linguistic sorting usages such as sorting a list of text strings that are displayed to an end user. In this mode, differences in uppercase and lowercase letters, accented characters, and other differences specific to the locale are considered when doing string comparisons.
CollatorMode.MATCHING: sets collation options for general usages such as determining if two strings are equivalent. In this mode, differences in uppercase and lower case letters, accented characters, and so on are ignored when doing string comparisons.

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:

AaÄäＡａAEaeÆæBbＢｂCcçＣｃ

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 ＡａAE ae Æ æB b ＢｂC c ç Ｃｃ

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:

AAEBCaaebcÄÆäæçＡＢａｂ

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 stringDescriptionstandardThe default ordering for each language. phonebookFor a phonebook-style ordering (used in German).pinyinPinyin 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)traditionalFor a traditional-style sort (used in Spanish) strokePinyin ordering for Latin, stroke order for CJK characters (used in Chinese)direct(used in Hindi) big5hanPinyin 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) unihanPinyin 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:

LastOperationStatus.NO_ERROR

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

LastOperationStatus.USING_FALLBACK_WARNING
LastOperationStatus.USING_DEFAULT_WARNING

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:String` — `String` 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.

Method Detail

compare

()

method

public function compare(string1:String, string2:String):int

Runtime Versions:

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:

LastOperationStatus.NO_ERROR

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.

equals

()

method

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

Runtime Versions:

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:

LastOperationStatus.NO_ERROR

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.

getAvailableLocaleIDNames

()

method

public function getAvailableLocaleIDNames():Vector.<String>

Runtime Versions:

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.

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