com.ibm.icu.text

Class RuleBasedCollator

public final class RuleBasedCollator extends Collator

RuleBasedCollator is a concrete subclass of Collator. It allows customization of the Collator via user-specified rule sets. RuleBasedCollator is designed to be fully compliant to the Unicode Collation Algorithm (UCA) and conforms to ISO 14651.

Users are strongly encouraged to read the users guide for more information about the collation service before using this class.

Create a RuleBasedCollator from a locale by calling the getInstance(Locale) factory method in the base class Collator. Collator.getInstance(Locale) creates a RuleBasedCollator object based on the collation rules defined by the argument locale. If a customized collation ordering ar attributes is required, use the RuleBasedCollator(String) constructor with the appropriate rules. The customized RuleBasedCollator will base its ordering on UCA, while re-adjusting the attributes and orders of the characters in the specified rule accordingly.

RuleBasedCollator provides correct collation orders for most locales supported in ICU. If specific data for a locale is not available, the orders eventually falls back to the UCA collation order .

For information about the collation rule syntax and details about customization, please refer to the Collation customization section of the user's guide.

Note that there are some differences between the Collation rule syntax used in Java and ICU4J:

Examples

Creating Customized RuleBasedCollators:

 String simple = "& a < b < c < d";
 RuleBasedCollator simpleCollator = new RuleBasedCollator(simple);

 String norwegian = "& a , A < b , B < c , C < d , D < e , E "
                    + "< f , F < g , G < h , H < i , I < j , "
                    + "J < k , K < l , L < m , M < n , N < "
                    + "o , O < p , P < q , Q < r , R < s , S < "
                    + "t , T < u , U < v , V < w , W < x , X "
                    + "< y , Y < z , Z < \u00E5 = a\u030A "
                    + ", \u00C5 = A\u030A ; aa , AA < \u00E6 "
                    + ", \u00C6 < \u00F8 , \u00D8";
 RuleBasedCollator norwegianCollator = new RuleBasedCollator(norwegian);
 
Concatenating rules to combine Collators:
 // Create an en_US Collator object
 RuleBasedCollator en_USCollator = (RuleBasedCollator)
     Collator.getInstance(new Locale("en", "US", ""));
 // Create a da_DK Collator object
 RuleBasedCollator da_DKCollator = (RuleBasedCollator)
     Collator.getInstance(new Locale("da", "DK", ""));
 // Combine the two
 // First, get the collation rules from en_USCollator
 String en_USRules = en_USCollator.getRules();
 // Second, get the collation rules from da_DKCollator
 String da_DKRules = da_DKCollator.getRules();
 RuleBasedCollator newCollator =
                             new RuleBasedCollator(en_USRules + da_DKRules);
 // newCollator has the combined rules
 
Making changes to an existing RuleBasedCollator to create a new Collator object, by appending changes to the existing rule:
 // Create a new Collator object with additional rules
 String addRules = "& C < ch, cH, Ch, CH";
 RuleBasedCollator myCollator =
     new RuleBasedCollator(en_USCollator + addRules);
 // myCollator contains the new rules
 
How to change the order of non-spacing accents:
 // old rule with main accents
 String oldRules = "= \u0301 ; \u0300 ; \u0302 ; \u0308 "
                 + "; \u0327 ; \u0303 ; \u0304 ; \u0305 "
                 + "; \u0306 ; \u0307 ; \u0309 ; \u030A "
                 + "; \u030B ; \u030C ; \u030D ; \u030E "
                 + "; \u030F ; \u0310 ; \u0311 ; \u0312 "
                 + "< a , A ; ae, AE ; \u00e6 , \u00c6 "
                 + "< b , B < c, C < e, E & C < d , D";
 // change the order of accent characters
 String addOn = "& \u0300 ; \u0308 ; \u0302";
 RuleBasedCollator myCollator = new RuleBasedCollator(oldRules + addOn);
 
Putting in a new primary ordering before the default setting, e.g. sort English characters before or after Japanese characters in the Japanese Collator:
 // get en_US Collator rules
 RuleBasedCollator en_USCollator
                        = (RuleBasedCollator)Collator.getInstance(Locale.US);
 // add a few Japanese characters to sort before English characters
 // suppose the last character before the first base letter 'a' in
 // the English collation rule is \u2212
 String jaString = "& \u2212 < \u3041, \u3042 < \u3043, "
                   + "\u3044";
 RuleBasedCollator myJapaneseCollator
              = new RuleBasedCollator(en_USCollator.getRules() + jaString);
 

This class is not subclassable

Author: Syn Wee Quek

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

Constructor Summary
RuleBasedCollator(String rules)

Constructor that takes the argument rules for customization.

Method Summary
Objectclone()
Clones the RuleBasedCollator
intcompare(String source, String target)
Compares the source text String to the target text String according to the collation rules, strength and decomposition mode for this RuleBasedCollator.
booleanequals(Object obj)
Compares the equality of two RuleBasedCollator objects.
CollationElementIteratorgetCollationElementIterator(String source)
Return a CollationElementIterator for the given String.
CollationElementIteratorgetCollationElementIterator(CharacterIterator source)
Return a CollationElementIterator for the given CharacterIterator.
CollationElementIteratorgetCollationElementIterator(UCharacterIterator source)
Return a CollationElementIterator for the given UCharacterIterator.
CollationKeygetCollationKey(String source)

Get a Collation key for the argument String source from this RuleBasedCollator.

voidgetContractionsAndExpansions(UnicodeSet contractions, UnicodeSet expansions, boolean addPrefixes)
Gets unicode sets containing contractions and/or expansions of a collator
booleangetNumericCollation()
Method to retrieve the numeric collation value.
RawCollationKeygetRawCollationKey(String source, RawCollationKey key)
Gets the simpler form of a CollationKey for the String source following the rules of this Collator and stores the result into the user provided argument key.
StringgetRules()
Gets the collation rules for this RuleBasedCollator.
StringgetRules(boolean fullrules)
Returns current rules.
UnicodeSetgetTailoredSet()
Get an UnicodeSet that contains all the characters and sequences tailored in this collator.
VersionInfogetUCAVersion()
Get the UCA version of this collator object.
intgetVariableTop()
Gets the variable top value of a Collator.
VersionInfogetVersion()
Get the version of this collator object.
inthashCode()
Generates a unique hash code for this RuleBasedCollator.
booleanisAlternateHandlingShifted()
Checks if the alternate handling behaviour is the UCA defined SHIFTED or NON_IGNORABLE.
booleanisCaseLevel()
Checks if case level is set to true.
booleanisFrenchCollation()
Checks if French Collation is set to true.
booleanisHiraganaQuaternary()
Checks if the Hiragana Quaternary mode is set on.
booleanisLowerCaseFirst()
Return true if a lowercase character is sorted before the corresponding uppercase character.
booleanisUpperCaseFirst()
Return true if an uppercase character is sorted before the corresponding lowercase character.
voidsetAlternateHandlingDefault()
Sets the alternate handling mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator.
voidsetAlternateHandlingShifted(boolean shifted)
Sets the alternate handling for QUATERNARY strength to be either shifted or non-ignorable.
voidsetCaseFirstDefault()
Sets the case first mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator.
voidsetCaseLevel(boolean flag)

When case level is set to true, an additional weight is formed between the SECONDARY and TERTIARY weight, known as the case level.

voidsetCaseLevelDefault()
Sets the case level mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator.
voidsetDecompositionDefault()
Sets the decomposition mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator.
voidsetFrenchCollation(boolean flag)
Sets the mode for the direction of SECONDARY weights to be used in French collation.
voidsetFrenchCollationDefault()
Sets the French collation mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator.
voidsetHiraganaQuaternary(boolean flag)
Sets the Hiragana Quaternary mode to be on or off.
voidsetHiraganaQuaternaryDefault()
Sets the Hiragana Quaternary mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator.
voidsetLowerCaseFirst(boolean lowerfirst)
Sets the orders of lower cased characters to sort before upper cased characters, in strength TERTIARY.
voidsetNumericCollation(boolean flag)
When numeric collation is turned on, this Collator generates a collation key for the numeric value of substrings of digits.
voidsetNumericCollationDefault()
Method to set numeric collation to its default value.
voidsetStrength(int newStrength)

Sets this Collator's strength property.

voidsetStrengthDefault()
Sets the collation strength to the initial mode set during the construction of the RuleBasedCollator.
voidsetUpperCaseFirst(boolean upperfirst)
Sets whether uppercase characters sort before lowercase characters or vice versa, in strength TERTIARY.
intsetVariableTop(String varTop)

Variable top is a two byte primary value which causes all the codepoints with primary values that are less or equal than the variable top to be shifted when alternate handling is set to SHIFTED.

voidsetVariableTop(int varTop)
Sets the variable top to a collation element value supplied.

Constructor Detail

RuleBasedCollator

public RuleBasedCollator(String rules)

Constructor that takes the argument rules for customization. The collator will be based on UCA, with the attributes and re-ordering of the characters specified in the argument rules.

See the user guide's section on Collation Customization for details on the rule syntax.

Parameters: rules the collation rules to build the collation table from.

Throws: ParseException and IOException thrown. ParseException thrown when argument rules have an invalid syntax. IOException thrown when an error occured while reading internal data.

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

Method Detail

clone

public Object clone()
Clones the RuleBasedCollator

Returns: a new instance of this RuleBasedCollator object

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

compare

public int compare(String source, String target)
Compares the source text String to the target text String according to the collation rules, strength and decomposition mode for this RuleBasedCollator. Returns an integer less than, equal to or greater than zero depending on whether the source String is less than, equal to or greater than the target String. See the Collator class description for an example of use.

General recommendation:
If comparison are to be done to the same String multiple times, it would be more efficient to generate CollationKeys for the Strings and use CollationKey.compareTo(CollationKey) for the comparisons. If speed performance is critical and object instantiation is to be reduced, further optimization may be achieved by generating a simpler key of the form RawCollationKey and reusing this RawCollationKey object with the method RuleBasedCollator.getRawCollationKey. Internal byte representation can be directly accessed via RawCollationKey and stored for future use. Like CollationKey, RawCollationKey provides a method RawCollationKey.compareTo for key comparisons. If the each Strings are compared to only once, using the method RuleBasedCollator.compare(String, String) will have a better performance.

Parameters: source the source text String. target the target text String.

Returns: Returns an integer value. Value is less than zero if source is less than target, value is zero if source and target are equal, value is greater than zero if source is greater than target.

See Also: CollationKey RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

equals

public boolean equals(Object obj)
Compares the equality of two RuleBasedCollator objects. RuleBasedCollator objects are equal if they have the same collation rules and the same attributes.

Parameters: obj the RuleBasedCollator to be compared to.

Returns: true if this RuleBasedCollator has exactly the same collation behaviour as obj, false otherwise.

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

getCollationElementIterator

public CollationElementIterator getCollationElementIterator(String source)
Return a CollationElementIterator for the given String.

See Also: CollationElementIterator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

getCollationElementIterator

public CollationElementIterator getCollationElementIterator(CharacterIterator source)
Return a CollationElementIterator for the given CharacterIterator. The source iterator's integrity will be preserved since a new copy will be created for use.

See Also: CollationElementIterator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

getCollationElementIterator

public CollationElementIterator getCollationElementIterator(UCharacterIterator source)
Return a CollationElementIterator for the given UCharacterIterator. The source iterator's integrity will be preserved since a new copy will be created for use.

See Also: CollationElementIterator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

getCollationKey

public CollationKey getCollationKey(String source)

Get a Collation key for the argument String source from this RuleBasedCollator.

General recommendation:
If comparison are to be done to the same String multiple times, it would be more efficient to generate CollationKeys for the Strings and use CollationKey.compareTo(CollationKey) for the comparisons. If the each Strings are compared to only once, using the method RuleBasedCollator.compare(String, String) will have a better performance.

See the class documentation for an explanation about CollationKeys.

Parameters: source the text String to be transformed into a collation key.

Returns: the CollationKey for the given String based on this RuleBasedCollator's collation rules. If the source String is null, a null CollationKey is returned.

See Also: CollationKey RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

getContractionsAndExpansions

public void getContractionsAndExpansions(UnicodeSet contractions, UnicodeSet expansions, boolean addPrefixes)
Gets unicode sets containing contractions and/or expansions of a collator

Parameters: contractions if not null, set to contain contractions expansions if not null, set to contain expansions addPrefixes add the prefix contextual elements to contractions

Throws: Exception

UNKNOWN: ICU 3.4 This API might change or be removed in a future release.

getNumericCollation

public boolean getNumericCollation()
Method to retrieve the numeric collation value. When numeric collation is turned on, this Collator generates a collation key for the numeric value of substrings of digits. This is a way to get '100' to sort AFTER '2'

Returns: true if numeric collation is turned on, false otherwise

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

getRawCollationKey

public RawCollationKey getRawCollationKey(String source, RawCollationKey key)
Gets the simpler form of a CollationKey for the String source following the rules of this Collator and stores the result into the user provided argument key. If key has a internal byte array of length that's too small for the result, the internal byte array will be grown to the exact required size.

Parameters: source the text String to be transformed into a RawCollationKey key output RawCollationKey to store results

Returns: If key is null, a new instance of RawCollationKey will be created and returned, otherwise the user provided key will be returned.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RawCollationKey

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

getRules

public String getRules()
Gets the collation rules for this RuleBasedCollator. Equivalent to String getRules(RuleOption.FULL_RULES).

Returns: returns the collation rules

See Also: RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

getRules

public String getRules(boolean fullrules)
Returns current rules. The argument defines whether full rules (UCA + tailored) rules are returned or just the tailoring.

Parameters: fullrules true if the rules that defines the full set of collation order is required, otherwise false for returning only the tailored rules

Returns: the current rules that defines this Collator.

See Also: getRules

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.6

getTailoredSet

public UnicodeSet getTailoredSet()
Get an UnicodeSet that contains all the characters and sequences tailored in this collator.

Returns: a pointer to a UnicodeSet object containing all the code points and sequences that may sort differently than in the UCA.

Throws: ParseException thrown when argument rules have an invalid syntax. IOException

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.4

getUCAVersion

public VersionInfo getUCAVersion()
Get the UCA version of this collator object.

Returns: the version object associated with this collator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

getVariableTop

public int getVariableTop()
Gets the variable top value of a Collator. Lower 16 bits are undefined and should be ignored.

Returns: the variable top value of a Collator.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.6

getVersion

public VersionInfo getVersion()
Get the version of this collator object.

Returns: the version object associated with this collator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

hashCode

public int hashCode()
Generates a unique hash code for this RuleBasedCollator.

Returns: the unique hash code for this Collator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

isAlternateHandlingShifted

public boolean isAlternateHandlingShifted()
Checks if the alternate handling behaviour is the UCA defined SHIFTED or NON_IGNORABLE. If return value is true, then the alternate handling attribute for the Collator is SHIFTED. Otherwise if return value is false, then the alternate handling attribute for the Collator is NON_IGNORABLE See setAlternateHandlingShifted(boolean) for more details.

Returns: true or false

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

isCaseLevel

public boolean isCaseLevel()
Checks if case level is set to true. See setCaseLevel(boolean) for details.

Returns: the case level mode

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

isFrenchCollation

public boolean isFrenchCollation()
Checks if French Collation is set to true. See setFrenchCollation(boolean) for details.

Returns: true if French Collation is set to true, false otherwise

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

isHiraganaQuaternary

public boolean isHiraganaQuaternary()
Checks if the Hiragana Quaternary mode is set on. See setHiraganaQuaternary(boolean) for more details.

Returns: flag true if Hiragana Quaternary mode is on, false otherwise

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

isLowerCaseFirst

public boolean isLowerCaseFirst()
Return true if a lowercase character is sorted before the corresponding uppercase character. See setCaseFirst(boolean) for details.

Returns: true lower cased characters are sorted before upper cased characters, false otherwise

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

isUpperCaseFirst

public boolean isUpperCaseFirst()
Return true if an uppercase character is sorted before the corresponding lowercase character. See setCaseFirst(boolean) for details.

Returns: true if upper cased characters are sorted before lower cased characters, false otherwise

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setAlternateHandlingDefault

public void setAlternateHandlingDefault()
Sets the alternate handling mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator. See setAlternateHandling(boolean) for more details.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator isAlternateHandlingShifted

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setAlternateHandlingShifted

public void setAlternateHandlingShifted(boolean shifted)
Sets the alternate handling for QUATERNARY strength to be either shifted or non-ignorable. See the UCA definition on Alternate Weighting. This attribute will only be effective when QUATERNARY strength is set. The default value for this mode is false, corresponding to the NON_IGNORABLE mode in UCA. In the NON-IGNORABLE mode, the RuleBasedCollator will treats all the codepoints with non-ignorable primary weights in the same way. If the mode is set to true, the behaviour corresponds to SHIFTED defined in UCA, this causes codepoints with PRIMARY orders that are equal or below the variable top value to be ignored in PRIMARY order and moved to the QUATERNARY order.

Parameters: shifted true if SHIFTED behaviour for alternate handling is desired, false for the NON_IGNORABLE behaviour.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setCaseFirstDefault

public final void setCaseFirstDefault()
Sets the case first mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator. See setUpperCaseFirst(boolean) and setLowerCaseFirst(boolean) for more details.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setCaseLevel

public void setCaseLevel(boolean flag)

When case level is set to true, an additional weight is formed between the SECONDARY and TERTIARY weight, known as the case level. The case level is used to distinguish large and small Japanese Kana characters. Case level could also be used in other situations. For example to distinguish certain Pinyin characters. The default value is false, which means the case level is not generated. The contents of the case level are affected by the case first mode. A simple way to ignore accent differences in a string is to set the strength to PRIMARY and enable case level.

See the section on case level for more information.

Parameters: flag true if case level sorting is required, false otherwise

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setCaseLevelDefault

public void setCaseLevelDefault()
Sets the case level mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator. See setCaseLevel(boolean) for more details.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setDecompositionDefault

public void setDecompositionDefault()
Sets the decomposition mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator. See setDecomposition(int) for more details.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setFrenchCollation

public void setFrenchCollation(boolean flag)
Sets the mode for the direction of SECONDARY weights to be used in French collation. The default value is false, which treats SECONDARY weights in the order they appear. If set to true, the SECONDARY weights will be sorted backwards. See the section on French collation for more information.

Parameters: flag true to set the French collation on, false to set it off

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setFrenchCollationDefault

public void setFrenchCollationDefault()
Sets the French collation mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator. See setFrenchCollation(boolean) for more details.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setHiraganaQuaternary

public void setHiraganaQuaternary(boolean flag)
Sets the Hiragana Quaternary mode to be on or off. When the Hiragana Quaternary mode is turned on, the collator positions Hiragana characters before all non-ignorable characters in QUATERNARY strength. This is to produce a correct JIS collation order, distinguishing between Katakana and Hiragana characters.

Parameters: flag true if Hiragana Quaternary mode is to be on, false otherwise

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setHiraganaQuaternaryDefault

public void setHiraganaQuaternaryDefault()
Sets the Hiragana Quaternary mode to the initial mode set during construction of the RuleBasedCollator. See setHiraganaQuaternary(boolean) for more details.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setLowerCaseFirst

public void setLowerCaseFirst(boolean lowerfirst)
Sets the orders of lower cased characters to sort before upper cased characters, in strength TERTIARY. The default mode is false. If true is set, the RuleBasedCollator will sort lower cased characters before the upper cased ones. Otherwise, if false is set, the RuleBasedCollator will ignore case preferences.

Parameters: lowerfirst true for sorting lower cased characters before upper cased characters, false to ignore case preferences.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setNumericCollation

public void setNumericCollation(boolean flag)
When numeric collation is turned on, this Collator generates a collation key for the numeric value of substrings of digits. This is a way to get '100' to sort AFTER '2'

Parameters: flag true to turn numeric collation on and false to turn it off

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setNumericCollationDefault

public void setNumericCollationDefault()
Method to set numeric collation to its default value. When numeric collation is turned on, this Collator generates a collation key for the numeric value of substrings of digits. This is a way to get '100' to sort AFTER '2'

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setStrength

public void setStrength(int newStrength)

Sets this Collator's strength property. The strength property determines the minimum level of difference considered significant during comparison.

See the Collator class description for an example of use.

Parameters: newStrength the new strength value.

Throws: IllegalArgumentException If the new strength value is not one of PRIMARY, SECONDARY, TERTIARY, QUATERNARY or IDENTICAL.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setStrengthDefault

public void setStrengthDefault()
Sets the collation strength to the initial mode set during the construction of the RuleBasedCollator. See setStrength(int) for more details.

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setUpperCaseFirst

public void setUpperCaseFirst(boolean upperfirst)
Sets whether uppercase characters sort before lowercase characters or vice versa, in strength TERTIARY. The default mode is false, and so lowercase characters sort before uppercase characters. If true, sort upper case characters first.

Parameters: upperfirst true to sort uppercase characters before lowercase characters, false to sort lowercase characters before uppercase characters

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.8

setVariableTop

public int setVariableTop(String varTop)

Variable top is a two byte primary value which causes all the codepoints with primary values that are less or equal than the variable top to be shifted when alternate handling is set to SHIFTED.

Sets the variable top to a collation element value of a string supplied.

Parameters: varTop one or more (if contraction) characters to which the variable top should be set

Returns: a int value containing the value of the variable top in upper 16 bits. Lower 16 bits are undefined.

Throws: IllegalArgumentException is thrown if varTop argument is not a valid variable top element. A variable top element is invalid when

See Also: RuleBasedCollator RuleBasedCollator

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.6

setVariableTop

public void setVariableTop(int varTop)
Sets the variable top to a collation element value supplied. Variable top is set to the upper 16 bits. Lower 16 bits are ignored.

Parameters: varTop Collation element value, as returned by setVariableTop or getVariableTop

See Also: RuleBasedCollator setVariableTop

UNKNOWN: ICU 2.6