Determining the order of typekeys

PolicyCenter uses the language collation rules defined in language_languageCode.xml as part of determining the ordering of typekeys from the database. To sort typekeys, PolicyCenter applies the following criteria:

If there is no .sort file defined for the typelist and language:

PolicyCenter uses the priority associated with each typekey in its typelist to order the typekeys by priority order.
For typekeys with the same priority, PolicyCenter applies the language collation rules to the typekey display names.

If there is a .sort file defined for the typelist and language:

PolicyCenter uses the order of the typekeys specified in that file.
For typekeys from the typelist that are not defined in the .sort file, PolicyCenter orders them after the defined typekeys, applying the language collation rules to these typekey display names.

Note: You typically need the .sort file only if you are supporting Japanese with other languages on the same server. Otherwise, the preferred technique is to specify the sort order by defining priority in the typelist and language collation in language_languageCode.xml.

PolicyCenter applies the collation rules to the typekey columns in database query ORDER BY clauses that sort database query results. File collations.xml contains multiple language collations because PolicyCenter supports storing typekey values in multiple languages in one database, enabling PolicyCenter to sort the typekey names correctly for each language. This storage scheme enables users with different language settings to see different translations of a typekey.