An Encoding Method for Multifield Sorting and Indexing Sequences of character strings with an order relation imposed between sequences are considered. An encoding scheme is described which produces a single, order-preserving string from a sequence of strings. The original sequence can be recovered from the encoded string, and one sequence of strings precedes another if and only if the encoding of the first precedes the encoding of the second. The strings may be variable length, without a maximum length restriction, and no symbols need be reserved for control purposes. Hence any symbol may occur in any string. The scheme is useful for multifield sorting, multifield indexing, and other applications where ordering on more than one field is important. CACM November, 1977 Blasgen, M. W. Casey, R. G. Eswaran, K. P. Sorting multifield indexes, lexicographic order, searching, encoding 3.74 4.19 4.33 4.40 5.31 CA771115 JB December 27, 1977 5:55 AM 2140 4 2901 2155 4 2901 2406 4 2901 2452 4 2901 2710 4 2901 2710 4 2901 2715 4 2901 2716 4 2901 2716 4 2901 2717 4 2901 2718 4 2901 2765 4 2901 2765 4 2901 2817 4 2901 2888 4 2901 2901 4 2901 2901 4 2901 2901 4 2901 2957 4 2901 2959 4 2901 2965 4 2901 3087 4 2901 3134 4 2901 3154 4 2901 1976 5 2901 2046 5 2901 2715 5 2901 2901 5 2901 2901 5 2901 2901 5 2901