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FILEMAKER PRO HELP 1248
Help topics that do not appear in the main table
of contents
Creating a database
Choosing a language for indexing or sorting
When you create a file, FileMaker Pro uses the operating system language setting to determine the
language used for
indexing text fields and sorting data. You can choose a different language in the
Storage tab of the Options for Field dialog box (for indexing and sorting) and the Sort Records dialog
box (for sorting only).
For languages such as Chinese, Spanish, and others, the index order of values in a text field can
differ from the sort order. For example, dictionary sort order in some languages distinguishes
between characters with and without diacritical marks, but index order does not. If you want to
display indexed values in dictionary sort order for such languages, select Re-sort values based on
in the View Index dialog box or Specify Fields for Value List dialog box (for field-based value lists)
and choose a language.
In all of these instances, you can change the language for indexing or sorting to:
• another language supported by FileMaker Pro
• a setting named Default, which is language-neutral
• a setting named Unicode, which is based on Unicode numeric encoding order
For more information about Unicode, visit http://www.unicode.org.
Using a language-based setting for indexing or sorting
Language settings in FileMaker Pro are based on Unicode Collation Algorithm primary and
secondary character collation weights, tailored to support language-specific indexing and sorting
requirements.
Note Some behavior is dependent upon the data source or drivers when using Japanese collation
that does not distinguish Katakana or Hiragana, either in full- or half-width. This is also the case with
roman characters with accents.
Using the Default language setting for indexing or sorting
The Default language setting uses the Unicode Collation Algorithm primary and secondary collation
weights for indexing and sorting characters without any language-specific tailoring.
The Default setting is useful when you need an index with more character distinctions than you get
when you index using a specific language. For example, if you use the French language setting to
index records containing the words “demande” and “demandé,” and then use the index to search for
the word “demande,” the result contains a set of records that contain either "demande" or
“demandé.” If you use the Default language setting to index the same records, a search for the word
“demande” results in the set of records that contain “demande,” but not “demandé.”
Using the Unicode setting for indexing or sorting
When you choose to index or sort by Unicode, characters are distinguished and ordered by their
Unicode numeric encoding. This means lowercase and uppercase letters are indexed and sorted
separately and punctuation characters are treated as alphanumeric characters.