1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising program code for causing a processor to execute a method, program code comprising: program code for receiving a plurality of text strings, each text string comprising at least one character, wherein each character of each text string is represented within the respective text string according to a representation format comprising: an equality part and a differentiator part, wherein the equality part indicates a membership within a class of characters and a sort priority of the class of characters, and the differentiator part represents a particular character of the class of characters indicated by the equality part, said representation format comprising a variable number of bits per character wherein a combination of the equality part and the differentiator part provides a complete representation of the string; program code for receiving a request to sort the plurality of text strings; program code for sorting the plurality of text strings based on the equality parts of the at least one characters of the plurality of text strings; and program code for displaying any of the plurality of text strings by generating a displayable representation of the respective text string from the combination of the equality parts and the differentiator parts.