Collation refers to the organizing of written content into a standardized order. String comparison functions utilize collation rules for Latin. A summary of the rules:

This table illustrates some generalized rules of Latin collation.

OrderDescriptionLesser ExampleGreater Example
1whitespace(space)(return)
2Punctuation'@
3Digits12
4LettersaA
5 Ab

Resources:

NOTE: In the following set of charts (linked below), the values at the top of the page are lower than the values listed lower on the page. Similarly, the charts listed in the left nav bar are listed in ascending order.

For more information on the applicable collation rules, see http://www.unicode.org/charts/collation/