Compares the alphabetic order of the elements in two lists pair-wise.

Note This @function is new with Release 6.

Syntax

@Compare( textlist ; textlist ; [ options ] )

Parameters

textlist

Text list. The first two parameters are text lists. If one list is shorter, the last element in the shorter list is repeated until it reaches the same length as the longer list. The corresponding elements of each list are compared.

Keyword list. The list can include any of the following keywords. Conflicting options result in the last specified.

[CASESENSITIVE] (default)

[CASEINSENSITIVE]

[ACCENTSENSITIVE] (default)

[ACCENTINSENSITIVE]

[PITCHSENSITIVE] (default)

[PITCHINSENSITIVE]

result

Number list. Each element is the result of comparing the corresponding elements in the text lists, and is one of three values:
• 0 if the elements in the two lists are equal
• -1 if the element in the first list is less than the element in the second list. For example, this is the result if the first list contains alice and the second list contains bobby.
• 1 if the element in the first list is greater than the element in the second list. For example, this is the result if the first list contains bobby and the second list contains alice.

The comparison sequence for the English character set is as follows: the apostrophe, the dash, the numbers 0-9, the alphabetic characters a-z and A-Z, and the remaining special characters. The sequence for the alphabetic characters is in order, lowercase character first: a, A, b, B, and so on through z, Z. This sequence can lead to some anomalies; for example, "new york" compares before "New Boston." Use the [CaseInsensitive] option, or @UpperCase, @LowerCase, and @ProperCase to address this behavior.

If you set Unicode standard sorting as the sorting option, you cannot select the following keywords or combinations:

• [PITCHINSENSITIVE]
• [CASESENSITIVE]:[ACCENTINSENSITIVE]

• Sorting dialog box that displays when you choose File - Preferences - User Preferences - International - Sorting from the main menu
• Database Properties box*
• Design Document Properties box*

For more information on Unicode sorting, see http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/

Language cross-reference

StrCompare function of LotusScript language

Example
See Also

"Enhancements to the formula language in Rnext" on the Lotus Developer Domain
Working with lists

Glossary