"John.Cowan" <xxxxxx@reutershealth.com> writes:

> Thomas Bushnell BSG scripsit:
>
>> Cannot the few cases where people want this specific thing simply
>> define an order themselves on the strings they share support for?
>
> The only portable approach would be to split the strings into chars,
> and map the chars using char->integer, and sort them according to
> what you want.

Yes, and what makes you think that is somehow intrinsically painful?

Regardless, I must say that I think this *must* take a back seat to my
primary goal:

Keep standardization from screwing up the efforts of people who do
want to implement Unicode correctly.