Sorting Rules

Mac OS X provides many ways for users to sort and organize documents using the Finder, including by name, by size, by modification date, and so on. Mac OS X sorting is based on the Unicode Collation Algorithm (Technical Standard UTS #10) defined by the Unicode Consortium. This standard provides a complete and unambiguous sort ordering for all Unicode characters and is available on the Unicode Consortium website (http://www.unicode.org).

The Finder in Mac OS X takes advantage of some sanctioned ways for altering the default sorting behavior defined by the Unicode standard. In particular, the Finder supports the following sorting rules:

• Punctuation and symbols are significant for sorting.

• Digit sub-strings are sorted by numeric value rather than as characters.

• Case is insignificant.