From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2022 14:54:01 +0000 (+0200)
Subject: Improve documentation of locale-specific string comparison
X-Git-Tag: emacs-29.0.90~1573
X-Git-Url: http://git.eshelyaron.com/gitweb/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=43e616aca56daa438e47051e15f8d2a7454a5cb1;p=emacs.git

Improve documentation of locale-specific string comparison

* doc/lispref/strings.texi (Text Comparison):
* src/fns.c (Fstring_collate_equalp): Improve documentation of
'string-collate-equalp' and 'string-collate-lessp'.  (Bug#59275)
---

diff --git a/doc/lispref/strings.texi b/doc/lispref/strings.texi
index 4454188cc4a..2f277ea73ae 100644
--- a/doc/lispref/strings.texi
+++ b/doc/lispref/strings.texi
@@ -558,11 +558,13 @@ differences, like @code{char-equal} when @code{case-fold-search} is
 @cindex locale-dependent string equivalence
 @defun string-collate-equalp string1 string2 &optional locale ignore-case
 This function returns @code{t} if @var{string1} and @var{string2} are
-equal with respect to collation rules.  A collation rule is not only
+equal with respect to the collation rules of the specified
+@var{locale}, which defaults to your current system locale.  A
+collation rule is not only
 determined by the lexicographic order of the characters contained in
-@var{string1} and @var{string2}, but also further rules about
+@var{string1} and @var{string2}, but also by further rules about
 relations between these characters.  Usually, it is defined by the
-@var{locale} environment Emacs is running with and by the Standard C
+locale environment with which Emacs is running and by the Standard C
 library against which Emacs was linked@footnote{
 For more information about collation rules and their locale
 dependencies, see @uref{https://unicode.org/reports/tr10/, The Unicode
@@ -589,8 +591,12 @@ dependent; a @var{locale} @code{"en_US.UTF-8"} is applicable on POSIX
 systems, while it would be, e.g., @code{"enu_USA.1252"} on MS-Windows
 systems.
 
-If @var{ignore-case} is non-@code{nil}, characters are converted to lower-case
-before comparing them.
+If @var{ignore-case} is non-@code{nil}, characters are compared
+case-insensitively, by converting them to lower-case.  However, if the
+underlying system library doesn't provide locale-specific collation
+rules, this function falls back to @code{string-equal}, in which case
+the @var{ignore-case} argument is ignored, and the comparison will
+always be case-sensitive.
 
 @vindex w32-collate-ignore-punctuation
 To emulate Unicode-compliant collation on MS-Windows systems,
@@ -672,11 +678,13 @@ This function returns the result of comparing @var{string1} and
 @cindex locale-dependent string comparison
 @defun string-collate-lessp string1 string2 &optional locale ignore-case
 This function returns @code{t} if @var{string1} is less than
-@var{string2} in collation order.  A collation order is not only
+@var{string2} in collation order of the specified @var{locale}, which
+defaults to your current system locale.  A collation order is not only
 determined by the lexicographic order of the characters contained in
-@var{string1} and @var{string2}, but also further rules about
+@var{string1} and @var{string2}, but also by further rules about
 relations between these characters.  Usually, it is defined by the
-@var{locale} environment Emacs is running with.
+locale environment with which Emacs is running, and by the Standard C
+library against which Emacs was linked.
 
 For example, punctuation and whitespace characters might be ignored
 for sorting (@pxref{Sequence Functions}):
@@ -706,8 +714,12 @@ systems.  The @var{locale} value of @code{"POSIX"} or @code{"C"} lets
 @end group
 @end example
 
-If @var{ignore-case} is non-@code{nil}, characters are converted to lower-case
-before comparing them.
+If @var{ignore-case} is non-@code{nil}, characters are compared
+case-insensitively, by converting them to lower-case.  However, if the
+underlying system library doesn't provide locale-specific collation
+rules, this function falls back to @code{string-lessp}, in which case
+the @var{ignore-case} argument is ignored, and the comparison will
+always be case-sensitive.
 
 To emulate Unicode-compliant collation on MS-Windows systems,
 bind @code{w32-collate-ignore-punctuation} to a non-@code{nil} value, since
diff --git a/src/fns.c b/src/fns.c
index e337c0958d5..7cc6d00afef 100644
--- a/src/fns.c
+++ b/src/fns.c
@@ -644,7 +644,8 @@ bind `w32-collate-ignore-punctuation' to a non-nil value, since
 the codeset part of the locale cannot be \"UTF-8\" on MS-Windows.
 
 If your system does not support a locale environment, this function
-behaves like `string-equal'.
+behaves like `string-equal', and in that case the IGNORE-CASE argument
+is ignored.
 
 Do NOT use this function to compare file names for equality.  */)
   (Lisp_Object s1, Lisp_Object s2, Lisp_Object locale, Lisp_Object ignore_case)