11. A computer-implemented method, comprising: in response to a search query having a search term having a plurality of characters, determining a key for each character of the search term; building a data structure having a plurality of nodes based on the search term, each node representing one of characters in the search term, wherein the data structure includes at least two nodes corresponding to different characters that have an identical meaning under a current language locale; and traversing each of the nodes in the data structure to identify one or more postings lists of an index corresponding to the plurality of nodes of the data structure, including for each node of the data structure, identifying one or more equivalent characters based on the current language locale, wherein each node of the data structure is associated with a key presenting a collation of variance of different characters having an identical meaning in different language locales, wherein traversing each of the nodes in the data structure comprises: comparing keys of the equivalent characters with the key of the corresponding character in the search term, matching a first key of each node of the data structure against a second key of a corresponding character of the search term, removing an equivalent character having a key that does not match the key of the corresponding character in the search term, wherein remaining characters are used to identify the one or more postings lists in the index, and returning to the client one or more item identifiers obtained from the one or more postings list, the one or more item identifiers identifying one or more files that contain the variance of the search term represented by the data structure.
11. A computer-implemented method, comprising: in response to a search query having a search term having a plurality of characters, determining a key for each character of the search term; building a data structure having a plurality of nodes based on the search term, each node representing one of characters in the search term, wherein the data structure includes at least two nodes corresponding to different characters that have an identical meaning under a current language locale; and traversing each of the nodes in the data structure to identify one or more postings lists of an index corresponding to the plurality of nodes of the data structure, including for each node of the data structure, identifying one or more equivalent characters based on the current language locale, wherein each node of the data structure is associated with a key presenting a collation of variance of different characters having an identical meaning in different language locales, wherein traversing each of the nodes in the data structure comprises: comparing keys of the equivalent characters with the key of the corresponding character in the search term, matching a first key of each node of the data structure against a second key of a corresponding character of the search term, removing an equivalent character having a key that does not match the key of the corresponding character in the search term, wherein remaining characters are used to identify the one or more postings lists in the index, and returning to the client one or more item identifiers obtained from the one or more postings list, the one or more item identifiers identifying one or more files that contain the variance of the search term represented by the data structure. 12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising presenting to a client one or more item identifiers obtained from the one or more postings list, the item identifiers identifying one or more files that contain the variance of the search term represented by the data structure.