@@ -162,6 +162,22 @@ public static int compareUtf8Strings(String left, String right) {
162
162
// used to represent code points greater than 0xFFFF which have 4-byte UTF-8 representations
163
163
// and are lexicographically greater than the 1, 2, or 3-byte representations of code points
164
164
// less than or equal to 0xFFFF.
165
+ //
166
+ // An example of why Case 2 is required is comparing the following two Unicode code points:
167
+ //
168
+ // |-----------------------|------------|---------------------|-----------------|
169
+ // | Name | Code Point | UTF-8 Encoding | UTF-16 Encoding |
170
+ // |-----------------------|------------|---------------------|-----------------|
171
+ // | Replacement Character | U+FFFD | 0xEF 0xBF 0xBD | 0xFFFD |
172
+ // | Grinning Face | U+1F600 | 0xF0 0x9F 0x98 0x80 | 0xD83D 0xDE00 |
173
+ // |-----------------------|------------|---------------------|-----------------|
174
+ //
175
+ // A lexicographical comparison of the UTF-8 encodings of these code points would order
176
+ // "Replacement Character" _before_ "Grinning Face" because 0xEF is less than 0xF0. However, a
177
+ // direct comparison of the UTF-16 code units, as would be done in case 1, would erroneously
178
+ // produce the _opposite_ ordering, because 0xFFFD is _greater than_ 0xD83D. As it turns out,
179
+ // this relative ordering holds for all comparisons of UTF-16 code points requiring a surrogate
180
+ // pair with those that do not.
165
181
final int length = Math .min (left .length (), right .length ());
166
182
for (int i = 0 ; i < length ; i ++) {
167
183
final char leftChar = left .charAt (i );
0 commit comments