Change in character collation sequence can break indexes
A change in the collation sequence of baseline extended ASCII characters (range 0-255) was inadvertently introduced in GS/S 6.2 with the introduction of Unicode character support. The change moved the collation sequence of characters with diacritic marks so that they would sort adjacent to their associated "plain vanilla" characters (originally they sorted towards the end of the sequence following their ASCII code).
The affected characters are:
192: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE
193: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH ACUTE
194: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX
195: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE
196: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS
197: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
170: FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR (treated like small a)
224: LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH GRAVE
225: LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE
226: LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX
227: LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH TILDE
228: LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS
229: LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
199: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA
231: LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA
200: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH GRAVE
201: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH ACUTE
202: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX
203: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH DIAERESIS
232: LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH GRAVE
233: LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE
234: LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX
235: LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH DIAERESIS
204: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH GRAVE
205: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH ACUTE
206: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH CIRCUMFLEX
207: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS
236: LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH GRAVE
237: LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH ACUTE
238: LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH CIRCUMFLEX
239: LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS
209: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH TILDE
241: LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE
210: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH GRAVE
211: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH ACUTE
212: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH CIRCUMFLEX
213: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH TILDE
214: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS
186: MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR (treated like small o)
242: LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH GRAVE
243: LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH ACUTE
244: LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH CIRCUMFLEX
245: LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH TILDE
246: LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS
217: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH GRAVE
218: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH ACUTE
219: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH CIRCUMFLEX
220: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS
249: LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH GRAVE
250: LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH ACUTE
251: LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH CIRCUMFLEX
252: LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS
221: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE
253: LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE
255: LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS
Due to this change, repositories converted from a pre-6.2 system to a post-6.2 system will exhibit the following problems:
* Encoded integers representing ANY string generated using
Array>>_insertEncodingForString:arraySize: (primitive 542) on the
pre-6.2 system will not generate the correct decoded String when
using Array>>_decodeKeyAt:decoding:into: (primitive 831) on the
post-6.2 system.
* Indexed collections generated on the pre-6.2 system on strings which
contain these characters will not return correct search results on the
post-6.2 system.
Workaround
There are two approaches to work around these problems:
1. It is possible to reconfigure the post-6.2 system to use the original
collation sequence. For this option to work, it must be applied before
any new elements are added to the indexed collections or new encoded
values generated. The procedure is as follows:
1. Acquire the following passivate data file from GemStone Techical
Support:
OldCollateCharTable.dat
2. Login to the system as SystemUser and execute the following:
Character activateCharTablesFromFile: 'OldCollateCharTable.dat'.
System commitTransaction.
All sessions that login subsequently will use the "new" original
collation sequence.
2. Delete and reconstruct any affected indexes, recalculate any encoded
values, using the new collation sequence.
Last updated: 8/19/08