Collation refers to ordering a list of items according to a defined sort order, like alpabetical order. Collation of strings of text is important in a range of applications.
Two systems for collating according to a sort order are:
[need more info and better descriptions]
Unicode, "FAQ: Collation," http://unicode.org/faq/collation.html
Wikipedia, "Classement alphabétique informatisé," http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classement_alphab%C3%A9tique_informatis%C3%A9
______, "Collation," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collation
