ORDER BY different locales

Hi,
a lot  of people  sometimes need  order same  data in  same DB  by moredifferent locales. For  example multi-language
webapplication  with DBin UTF-8.  It's  problem in PostgreSQL, because  PostgreSQL require setLC_COLLATE by initdb.
 
I  think possible  solution is  special function  used ORDER  BY clausewhich knows to switch by safe  way to wanted
locales,convert string bystrxfrm() and switch back to backend locales.
 
Is this  function interesting  for PostgreSQL  contrib or  main tree? Ithink it's very useful for a lot of users.  I
canprepare a patch.
 
Note, the original idea and patch is from Honza Pazdziora <adelton@informatics.muni.cz>.
For example, the Czech alphabet has between 'h' and 'i' letter 'ch':
# SHOW LC_COLLATE; lc_collate ------------    C
# SELECT data FROM str ORDER BY nls_string(data,'en_US'); data  ------- aaaa cccc chccc dddd hhhh iiii zzzz
# SELECT data FROM str ORDER BY nls_string(data,'cs_CZ'); data  ------- aaaa cccc dddd hhhh chccc iiii zzzz
The function returns result encoded in unsigned octal:
# SELECT nls_string('pg','en_US');    nls_string        -------------------------- 033022001010010001002002

Source:

static char *lc_collate_cache = NULL;

PG_FUNCTION_INFO_V1(nls_string);

Datum
nls_string(PG_FUNCTION_ARGS) 
{text *locale = PG_GETARG_TEXT_P(1);char *locale_str;int locale_len;text *txt = PG_GETARG_TEXT_P(0);char *txt_str;int
txt_len;text*txt_out;char *txt_tmp;size_t size = 0;size_t rest = 0;int i;
 
if ((VARSIZE(locale) - VARHDRSZ) <= 0 || (VARSIZE(txt) - VARHDRSZ) <= 0)    PG_RETURN_NULL();/* * Save original locale
setting*/if (!lc_collate_cache){    if ((lc_collate_cache = setlocale(LC_COLLATE, NULL)))        /* cached independent
onPostgreSQL mmgr */        lc_collate_cache = strdup(lc_collate_cache);}if (!lc_collate_cache)    elog(ERROR, "invalid
systemLC_COLLATE setting");
 
/* * Conversion to standard strings */locale_len = VARSIZE(locale) - VARHDRSZ;locale_str = palloc(locale_len +
1);memcpy(locale_str,VARDATA(locale), locale_len);*(locale_str + locale_len) = '\0';
 
txt_len = VARSIZE(txt) - VARHDRSZ;txt_str = palloc(txt_len + 1);memcpy(txt_str, VARDATA(txt), txt_len);*(txt_str +
txt_len)= '\0';
 
/* * Set wanted locale */if (!setlocale(LC_COLLATE, locale_str)){    setlocale(LC_COLLATE, lc_collate_cache);    /*
paranoid?*/    elog(ERROR, "invalid LC_COLLATE setting: %s", locale_str);}pfree(locale_str);/* * Text transformation
*/size= txt_len * 2;txt_tmp = palloc(size);memset(txt_tmp, 0, size);
 
rest = strxfrm(txt_tmp, txt_str, size) + 1;if (rest >= size) {    pfree(txt_tmp);    txt_tmp = palloc(rest);
memset(txt_tmp,0, rest);    rest = strxfrm(txt_tmp, txt_str, rest);}/* * Transformation to unsigned octal */txt_out =
(text*) palloc(3 * rest + VARHDRSZ);memset(txt_out, 0, 3 * rest + VARHDRSZ);for (i = 0; i < rest; i++) {
sprintf(VARDATA(txt_out)+ 3 * i, "%03o",        (int)(unsigned char)*(txt_tmp + i));}pfree(txt_tmp);
 
VARATT_SIZEP(txt_out) = 3 * rest + VARHDRSZ;
/* * Set original locale */if (!setlocale(LC_COLLATE, lc_collate_cache))    elog(ERROR, "invalid LC_COLLATE setting:
%s",lc_collate_cache);PG_RETURN_TEXT_P(txt_out);
 
}


-- Karel Zak  <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>http://home.zf.jcu.cz/~zakkr/