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. Define a collating sequence by specifying a string of single or double characters or ranges of single characters. This string should be enclosed in parentheses. Separate each character and character range with a comma, and enclose the entire list in parentheses. You can specify a single or double character.