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Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center
AlphabeticOrder
  • See Also
    • AlphabeticSort
    • Order
    • LexicographicOrder
    • NumericalOrder
    • Alphabet
    • LanguageData
  • Related Guides
    • International Character Sets
    • Linguistic Data
    • Testing Expressions
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    • See Also
      • AlphabeticSort
      • Order
      • LexicographicOrder
      • NumericalOrder
      • Alphabet
      • LanguageData
    • Related Guides
      • International Character Sets
      • Linguistic Data
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AlphabeticOrder["string1","string2"]

gives 1 if "string1" appears before "string2" in alphabetical order, -1 if it is after, and 0 if it is identical.

AlphabeticOrder["string1","string2",lang]

uses an ordering suitable for the language lang.

AlphabeticOrder[lang]

represents an operator form that compares strings when applied to "string1", "string2".

Details and Options
Details and Options Details and Options
Examples  
Basic Examples  
Scope  
Options  
CaseOrdering  
IgnoreCase  
IgnoreDiacritics  
IgnorePunctuation  
Applications  
Properties & Relations  
Possible Issues  
Neat Examples  
See Also
Related Guides
History
Cite this Page
BUILT-IN SYMBOL
  • See Also
    • AlphabeticSort
    • Order
    • LexicographicOrder
    • NumericalOrder
    • Alphabet
    • LanguageData
  • Related Guides
    • International Character Sets
    • Linguistic Data
    • Testing Expressions
    • String Operations
    • See Also
      • AlphabeticSort
      • Order
      • LexicographicOrder
      • NumericalOrder
      • Alphabet
      • LanguageData
    • Related Guides
      • International Character Sets
      • Linguistic Data
      • Testing Expressions
      • String Operations

AlphabeticOrder

AlphabeticOrder["string1","string2"]

gives 1 if "string1" appears before "string2" in alphabetical order, -1 if it is after, and 0 if it is identical.

AlphabeticOrder["string1","string2",lang]

uses an ordering suitable for the language lang.

AlphabeticOrder[lang]

represents an operator form that compares strings when applied to "string1", "string2".

Details and Options

  • The language can be specified by a language standard name, as used in LanguageData, or by a language entity. It can also be an alphabet specification, as used in Alphabet.
  • The default language is $Language.
  • The following options can be given:
  • CaseOrdering Automatichow to order upper vs. lower case
    IgnoreCase Falsewhether to ignore case for ordering
    IgnoreDiacritics Falsewhether to ignore diacritics for ordering
    IgnorePunctuation Falsewhether to ignore punctuation for ordering
    Language$Languagewhat language or alphabet to assume
  • If an explicit language is specified in AlphabeticOrder[…,lang], it overrides any setting for the Language option.

Examples

open all close all

Basic Examples  (3)

Check the order of two characters:

Specify a language as the third argument:

When digraphs exist in a language, they are equivalent to corresponding pairs of ASCII characters:

Scope  (4)

AlphabeticOrder operates over single characters or longer strings:

Use the operator form:

Specify a language in operator form:

Use options in operator form:

Options  (8)

CaseOrdering  (2)

CaseOrdering->"LowerFirst" orders lowercase before uppercase letters. It is the default for most languages:

CaseOrdering->"UpperFirst" orders uppercase before lowercase letters:

IgnoreCase  (2)

With IgnoreCase->True, comparisons are case insensitive:

Equivalence between lower case and upper case can vary by language:

IgnoreDiacritics  (3)

With IgnoreDiacritics->True, comparisons are based only on basic letters from the alphabet:

When characters with diacritics are considered to be a fundamental part of a given alphabet, IgnoreDiacritics will not affect those characters:

The IgnoreDiacritics option can be mixed with any other option, such as IgnoreCase:

IgnorePunctuation  (1)

With IgnorePunctuation->True, punctuation characters are removed before comparing the strings:

Applications  (2)

Sort the Japanese names of countries with Wolfram offices:

When digraphs are part of a language, they will be ordered correctly (as in Slovak, where "ch" is after "h"):

Properties & Relations  (4)

Use the operator form of AlphabeticOrder to confirm that Alphabet of the same language is already ordered:

The results from AlphabeticOrder and Order may differ for non-English languages:

For some languages, using IgnoreDiacritics may give a different result than applying RemoveDiacritics first:

AlphabeticSort uses AlphabeticOrder as its ordering function:

Possible Issues  (1)

Different characters that represent the same letter in some languages are considered exact equivalents:

Neat Examples  (1)

Find all Unicode characters considered equivalent to "a" without taking into account diacritics or case:

Sort alphabetically:

Split by case:

See Also

AlphabeticSort  Order  LexicographicOrder  NumericalOrder  Alphabet  LanguageData

Related Guides

    ▪
  • International Character Sets
  • ▪
  • Linguistic Data
  • ▪
  • Testing Expressions
  • ▪
  • String Operations

History

Introduced in 2015 (10.3)

Wolfram Research (2015), AlphabeticOrder, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AlphabeticOrder.html.

Text

Wolfram Research (2015), AlphabeticOrder, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AlphabeticOrder.html.

CMS

Wolfram Language. 2015. "AlphabeticOrder." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AlphabeticOrder.html.

APA

Wolfram Language. (2015). AlphabeticOrder. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AlphabeticOrder.html

BibTeX

@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_alphabeticorder, author="Wolfram Research", title="{AlphabeticOrder}", year="2015", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AlphabeticOrder.html}", note=[Accessed: 01-March-2026]}

BibLaTeX

@online{reference.wolfram_2025_alphabeticorder, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={AlphabeticOrder}, year={2015}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AlphabeticOrder.html}, note=[Accessed: 01-March-2026]}

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