NET provides extensive support for developing localized and globalized applications, and makes it easy to apply the conventions of either the current culture or a specific culture when performing common operations such as sorting and displaying strings. But sorting or comparing strings is not always a culture-sensitive operation. For example, strings that are used internally by an application typically should be handled identically across all cultures. When culturally independent string data, such as XML tags, HTML tags, user names, file paths, and the names of system objects, are interpreted as if they were culture-sensitive, application code can be subject to subtle bugs, poor performance, and, in some cases, security issues.
This article examines the string sorting, comparison, and casing methods in .NET, presents recommendations for selecting an appropriate string-handling method, and provides additional information about string-handling methods.
ragini singh