How to compare characters (respecting a culture)

Question

For my answer in this question I have to compare two characters. I thought that the normal char.CompareTo() method would allow me to specify a CultureInfo, but that's not the case.

So my question is: How can I compare two characters and specify a CultureInfo for the comparison?

Answer 1

There is no culture enabled comparison for characters, you have to convert the characters to strings so that you can use for example the String.Compare(string, string, CultureInfo, CompareOptions) method.

Example:

char a = 'å';
char b = 'ä';

// outputs -1:
Console.WriteLine(String.Compare(
  a.ToString(),
  b.ToString(),
  CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("sv-SE"),
  CompareOptions.IgnoreCase
));

// outputs 1:
Console.WriteLine(String.Compare(
  a.ToString(),
  b.ToString(),
  CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("en-GB"),
  CompareOptions.IgnoreCase
));