The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 22, 1991
Filed:
Apr. 08, 1988
Philip Y Chang, Austin, TX (US);
Michael R Cross, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A sorting technique which relies on the operating system collating weights of characters to the extent that a collating weight difference exists in any of the pairs of corresponding characters of two different strings of characters being compared. While this comparision is being made, the first tie of collating weights for a pair of nonidentical corresponding characters triggers a comparison of the ASCII code values of the two corresponding characters which tied. Assuming that such a tie has occurred, and if, after reaching the end of this process no differences in the collating weights of corresponding characters are found, then if one string has a corresponding character with a lower ASCII value, that string is considered to precede the other string in the alphabetic sequence. This results in an automated alphabetizing procedure which is consistent regardless of the order in which the character strings are sorted, while retaining the flavor of the language conventions when possible, and while providing a solution not requiring substantial extra computing power.