1. A method for establishing a collating order between a first text string and a second text string, the first text string and the second text string consisting of characters belonging to a language which has a predefined character precedence, the method being operable in a computer system having a processor and a memory connected to the processor and containing locations for storing information including the first text string and the second text string and comprising the steps of: (a) defining at least one ordering value for each character based on the predefined character precedence the language; (b) storing ordering values for all characters in the memory; (c) retrieving from the memory pairs of characters including a first character from the first text string and a second character from the second text string; (d) retrieving an ordering value for the first character and an ordering value for the second character; (e) performing a comparison of the retrieved ordering values of the characters to determine a difference between the first and the second text string; and (f) computing a minimum trailing match length value for each position in the second text string.
1. A method for establishing a collating order between a first text string and a second text string, the first text string and the second text string consisting of characters belonging to a language which has a predefined character precedence, the method being operable in a computer system having a processor and a memory connected to the processor and containing locations for storing information including the first text string and the second text string and comprising the steps of: (a) defining at least one ordering value for each character based on the predefined character precedence the language; (b) storing ordering values for all characters in the memory; (c) retrieving from the memory pairs of characters including a first character from the first text string and a second character from the second text string; (d) retrieving an ordering value for the first character and an ordering value for the second character; (e) performing a comparison of the retrieved ordering values of the characters to determine a difference between the first and the second text string; and (f) computing a minimum trailing match length value for each position in the second text string. 10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the first text string consists of characters belonging to a first language which has a first predefined character precedence and the second text string consists of characters belonging to a second language which has a second predefined character precedence and wherein step (a) comprises the steps of: (a4) defining at least one first ordering value for each character based on the predefined character precedence of the first language; (a5) defining at least one second ordering value for each character based on the predefined character precedence of the second language; and (a6) merging the first and second ordering values.