ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Collation

Okay kiddo, imagine you have a bunch of different colored candies. Now, imagine you want to put them in order by color. That's kind of like what collation is.

Collation is the way computers put things in order, like words or numbers. When you ask a computer to sort things, it will use a specific set of rules to decide which thing comes first, second, and so on. These rules are called collation rules.

Just like how you might sort your candies by color, computers can sort things in different ways, depending on how you want them arranged. For example, if you're sorting a list of names, you might want to sort them alphabetically by last name. Or if you're sorting a list of numbers, you might want them sorted from smallest to largest or vice versa.

Different languages and countries have different rules for collation. For example, in English, the letter "a" always comes before "b". But in some other languages, like Spanish, the letter "n" comes before "o". So, when you're sorting words that use different alphabets, you need to use the correct collation to make sure they're sorted correctly.

In summary, collation is the way computers put things in order, and it uses rules to decide which things come first, second, and so on. These rules change based on the language or type of data being sorted.