Data Collation
Collation specifies how values are ordered and compared, and is part of both InterSystems SQL and InterSystems IRIS objects.
You can specify a collation type as part of field/property definition. Unless otherwise specified, a string field/property defaults to the namespace default collation. By default, the namespace default collation for strings is SQLUPPER. SQLUPPER collation transforms strings into uppercase for the purposes of sorting and comparing. Thus, unless otherwise specified, string ordering and comparison is not case-sensitive.
You can specify a collation type as part of index definition, or use the collation type of the indexed field.
An SQL query can override the defined field/property collation type by applying a collation function to a field name. The ORDER BY clause specifies the result set sequence for a query; if a specified string field is defined as SQLUPPER, query results order is not case-sensitive.
For further details refer to Collation.
