Collator compare doubt

Question

I am using the java collator compare to sort strings alphabetically.
The input strings are:
1)Google home Page
2)Yahoo Home page
3)orkut Home Page
After this the lines are circulary shifted and then sorted.
After sorting i am getting the following output.
Google home Page
home Page Google
Home Page orkut
Home page Yahoo
orkut Home Page
Page Google home
Page orkut Home
page Yahoo Home
Yahoo Home page
Shouldn't p become before P?
My understanding is that collator compare does a natural language comparator. So it should sort like a<A<b<B<c<C........z<Z
(i.e a less than A less than b less than B...)
The comparator i am using is
Collections.sort(arrayList,new Comparator() {
public int compare(Object o1, Object o2)
Collator myCollator = Collator.getInstance();
myCollator.setStrength(Collator.TERTIARY);
String str1 = (String)o1.toString();
String str2 = (String)o2.toString();
return myCollator.compare(str1,str2);
Is there anything wrong in the way I am using the comparator or is my understanding of the way collator works is wrong?
I tried setting the locale also..but no difference.
Message was edited by:
n.santhosh

Answer 1

Read the How Should I Compare String Objects tip for information on how a
Collator works.The statement made there that alphabetic differences are "primary" is what I
was getting at. The OP's output is exactly what you would expect from an
alphabetic ordering of strings.
But the OP wants
page Yahoo Home < Page Google Home
notwithstanding the fact that Y > G.
It looks like the wrong things are being compared. Instead of comparing
strings (sequences of letters - I realise Collator doesn't exactly do that),
phrases (sequences of strings) should be compared. Something along
the lines ofstatic int comparePhrase(List<String> phr1, List<String> phr2) {
    int sz1 = phr1.size();
    int sz2 = phr2.size();
    if(sz1 == 0 && sz2 == 0) return 0;
    if(sz1 == 0) return -1;
    if(sz2 == 0) return 1;
        // coll is a Collator instance
    int ret = coll.compare(phr1.get(0), phr2.get(0));
    if(ret != 0) return ret;
    return comparePhrase(phr1.subList(1, sz1), phr2.subList(1, sz2));
}