std::collate<CharT>:: compare, std::collate<CharT>:: do_compare

Parameters

Return value

1 if the first string is greater than the second (that is, follows the second in the collation order), - 1 if the first string is less than the second (precedes the second in the collation order), zero if the two strings are equivalent.

Notes

When three-way comparison is not required (such as when providing a Compare argument to standard algorithms such as std::sort ), std::locale::operator() may be more appropriate.

Collation order is the dictionary order: the position of the letter in the national alphabet (its equivalence class ) has higher priority than its case or variant. Within an equivalence class, lowercase characters collate before their uppercase equivalents and locale-specific order may apply to the characters with diacritics. In some locales, groups of characters compare as single collation units . For example, "ch" in Czech follows "h" and precedes "i" , and "dzs" in Hungarian follows "dz" and precedes "g" .

Example

#include <iostream>
#include <locale>
#include <string>
 
template<typename CharT>
void try_compare(const std::locale& l, const CharT* p1, const CharT* p2)
{
    auto& f = std::use_facet<std::collate<CharT>>(l);
 
    std::basic_string<CharT> s1(p1), s2(p2);
    if (f.compare(&s1[0], &s1[0] + s1.size(),
                  &s2[0], &s2[0] + s2.size()) < 0)
        std::wcout << p1 << " before " << p2 << '\n';
    else
        std::wcout << p2 << " before " << p1 << '\n';
}
 
int main()
{
    std::locale::global(std::locale("en_US.utf8"));
    std::wcout.imbue(std::locale());
 
    std::wcout << "In the American locale: ";
    try_compare(std::locale(), "hrnec", "chrt");
    std::wcout << "In the Czech locale: ";
    try_compare(std::locale("cs_CZ.utf8"), "hrnec", "chrt");
 
    std::wcout << "In the American locale: ";
    try_compare(std::locale(), L"år", L"ängel");
    std::wcout << "In the Swedish locale: ";
    try_compare(std::locale("sv_SE.utf8"), L"år", L"ängel");
}

In the American locale: chrt before hrnec
In the Czech locale: hrnec before chrt
In the American locale: ängel before år
In the Swedish locale: år before ängel

See also