You may want to sort data according to a country-specific lexicographical convention instead of the usual binary sort. You can do this using SORT ... AS TEXT for an internal table or an extract. You can also use CONVERT ... INTO SORTABLE CODE to generate a field that reproduces that lexicographic convention in a binary search.
The locale is either predefined, or can be set explicitly in a program using the SET LOCALE statement.
The result of a locale-specific sort depends on the operating system of the application server, since
its locale determines the way in which data is sorted. While the sequence of letters belonging to the
active language is the same on any operating system, different operating systems differ in how they
treat those characters that do not belong to the alphabet of the current language.
In sorting whole
words, slight differences may occur in the sort order of letters from the active language.
Furthermore, the sequence of upper- and lowercase letters depends on the operating system.
You cannot assume that locale-specific sorting will produce a worthwhile result.
Remember
that you must reckon with differences between operating systems!
For this reason, never assume a particular sort order in your program code!
SAP is currently in discussion with various operating system manufacturers about unifying the sort order. This should become available in a future release. This means that the sort sequence could, in future, change from its current rules.