Question: Where can I find the precedence of characters when sorting in MySQL, PHP, or just in general on Linux and Windows OS? For example, everybody knows that a comes before b when performing an ascending sort on a string in MySQL. But what about other characters? Does the dollar-sign $ come before asterisk * ? Does a space come before an exclamation-mark? etc... What dictates the sort order? Does it use underlying ascii / UTF-8 values? Is it different for different technologies? Technologies to consider: Databases - MySQL / SQL / SQLite / Oracle / etc Programming languages (for string-sorting functions) - PHP / Javascript / ASP.NET / Visual C# / Python / Ruby / Objective C OS (i.e., sorting files by filename) - Windows / Linux / MacOS / iOS / Android