VMS Help SORT, /COLLATING_SEQUENCE  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

    Selects one of three predefined collating sequences for character
    key fields, or specifies the name of a National character set
    (NCS) collating sequence to be used in comparing character keys.
    Sort arranges characters in ASCII sequence by default; the EBCDIC
    and Multinational sequences can also be used.

    High-performance Sort/Merge: The high-performance Sort/Merge
    utility currently supports all collating sequences except NCS.

    Formats

      /COLLATING_SEQUENCE=type

      /COLLATING_SEQUENCE=cs-name

1 - Parameters

 type

    o  ASCII

       Arranges characters according to ASCII sequence. ASCII is the
       default sequence and need not be specified.

    o  EBCDIC

       Arranges characters according to EBCDIC sequence. The
       characters remain in ASCII representation; only the order
       is changed.

    o  Multinational

       Arranges characters according to Multinational sequence, which
       collates the international character set. When you use the
       Multinational sequence, characters are ordered according to
       the following rules:

       -  All diacritical (accented) forms of a character are given
          the collating value of the character (A', A", A` collate as
          A).

       -  Lowercase characters are given the collating value of their
          uppercase equivalents (a collates as A, a" collates as A").

       -  If two strings compare as equal, tie-breaking is performed.
          The strings are compared to detect differences due to
          diacritical marks, ignored characters, or characters that
          collate as equal although they are actually different. If
          the strings still compare as equal, another comparison is
          done based on the numeric codes of the characters. In this
          final comparison, lowercase characters are ordered before
          uppercase.

       Care should be taken when sorting or merging files for further
       processing using the Multinational sequence. Sequence checking
       procedures in most programming languages compare numeric
       characters. Because Multinational is based on actual graphic
       characters and not on the codes representing those characters,
       normal sequence checking does not work.

 cs-name

    Arranges character keys according to the named sequence, which
    must be a collating sequence defined in an NCS library.

    High-performance Sort/Merge: The high-performance Sort/Merge
    utility currently supports only the ASCII, EBCDIC, and
    Multinational collating sequences.

2 - Full Description

    By default, Sort/Merge arranges records according to ASCII
    sequence. However, it can also arrange records according to
    EBCDIC and Multinational sequence.

    These three collating sequences can be modified to meet your
    particular needs through the use of a specification file. You can
    also define your own collating sequence by using a specification
    file if one of the three collating sequences does not suit your
    needs.

3 - Example

  $ SORT/COLLATING_SEQUENCE=MULTINATIONAL -
  _$ NAMES.DAT,NOM.DAT LIST.LIS

      This SORT command arranges the input files NAMES.DAT and
      NOM.DAT according to the Multinational collating sequence to
      create the output file LIST.LIS.