Intl.Collator

The Intl.Collator objects enable language sensitive string comparison.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

Constructor

Intl.Collator()

Creates a new Collator object.

Static methods

Intl.Collator.supportedLocalesOf()

Returns an array containing those of the provided locales that are supported without having to fall back to the runtime's default locale.

Instance methods

Intl.Collator.prototype.compare

Getter function that compares two strings according to the sort order of this Intl.Collator object.

Intl.Collator.prototype.resolvedOptions()

Returns a new object with properties reflecting the locale and collation options computed during initialization of the object.

Examples

Using Collator

The following example demonstrates the different potential results for a string occurring before, after, or at the same level as another:

console.log(new Intl.Collator().compare('a', 'c')); // → a negative value
console.log(new Intl.Collator().compare('c', 'a')); // → a positive value
console.log(new Intl.Collator().compare('a', 'a')); // → 0

Note that the results shown in the code above can vary between browsers and browser versions. This is because the values are implementation-specific. That is, the specification requires only that the before and after values are negative and positive.

Using locales

The results provided by Collator.prototype.compare() vary between languages. In order to get the sort order of the language used in the user interface of your application, make sure to specify that language (and possibly some fallback languages) using the locales argument:

// in German, ä sorts with a
console.log(new Intl.Collator('de').compare('ä', 'z'));
// → a negative value

// in Swedish, ä sorts after z
console.log(new Intl.Collator('sv').compare('ä', 'z'));
// → a positive value

Using options

The results provided by Collator.prototype.compare() can be customized using the options argument:

// in German, ä has a as the base letter
console.log(new Intl.Collator('de', { sensitivity: 'base' }).compare('ä', 'a'));
// → 0

// in Swedish, ä and a are separate base letters
console.log(new Intl.Collator('sv', { sensitivity: 'base' }).compare('ä', 'a'));
// → a positive value

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• Intl