Possible Duplicate:
Python not sorting unicode properly. Strcoll doesn't help.
I'm trying to sort some words in alphabetical order. Here is how I do it:
#!/opt/local/bin/python2.7
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import locale
# Make sure the locale is in french
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, "fr_FR.UTF-8")
print "locale: " + str(locale.getlocale())
# The words are in alphabetical order
words = ["liche", "lichée", "lichen", "lichénoïde", "licher", "lichoter"]
for word in sorted(words, cmp=locale.strcoll):
print word.decode("string-escape")
I'm expecting that the words are printed in the same order as they are defined, but here is what I get:
locale: ('fr_FR', 'UTF8')
liche
lichen
licher
lichoter
lichée
lichénoïde
The é character is treated as if it's greater than z.
It seems I'm misunderstanding how locale.strcoll is comparing strings. What comparator function should I use to get the words sorted alphabetically?
