Editing Collation (section)

{{short description|Assembly of written information into a standard order}}
{{about|collation in library, information, and computer science}}
{{redirect|sortkey|Wikipedia's usage of sortkeys in categories|WP:SORTKEY}}
{{refimprove|date=March 2019}}
'''Collation''' is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on [[number|numerical order]] or [[alphabetical order]], or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office [[library classification|filing systems]], [[library catalog]]s, and [[reference book]]s.

Collation differs from ''[[Classification (general theory)|classification]]'' in that the classes themselves are not necessarily ordered. However, even if the order of the classes is irrelevant, the identifiers of the classes may be members of an ordered set, allowing a [[sorting algorithm]] to arrange the items by class.

Formally speaking, a collation method typically defines a [[total order]] on a set of possible identifiers, called sort keys, which consequently produces a [[total preorder]] on the set of items of information (items with the same identifier are not placed in any defined order).

A collation algorithm such as the [[Unicode collation algorithm]] defines an order through the process of comparing two given [[character string]]s and deciding which should come before the other. When an order has been defined in this way, a sorting algorithm can be used to put a list of any number of items into that order.

The main advantage of collation is that it makes it fast and easy for a user to find an element in the list, or to confirm that it is absent from the list. In automatic systems this can be done using a [[binary search algorithm]] or [[interpolation search]]; manual searching may be performed using a roughly similar procedure, though this will often be done unconsciously. Other advantages are that one can easily find the first or last elements on the list (most likely to be useful in the case of numerically sorted data), or elements in a given range (useful again in the case of numerical data, and also with alphabetically ordered data when one may be sure of only the first few letters of the sought item or items).