10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein at least one of said plurality of text strings comprises a string format having an equality string part and a differentiator string part, the first string part comprising the equality parts of each of the characters of the string, and the differentiator string part comprising the differentiator parts of each of the characters of the string, wherein the equality string part comprises a contiguous block of memory storing the equality parts of each of the characters of the string, and wherein the differentiator string part comprises a contiguous block of memory storing the differentiator parts of each of the characters of the string.
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.