The terms alphabetical and lexicographical are used interchangeably, but if they mean the same, why do we have two different terms for it? I googled, then I asked around but without much success at first, but got the answer I was looking for.
What’s the difference between lexicographical and alphabetical order? qr.ae/8UvRO
— Bettina Kast (@spunkypixels) August 16, 2012
The problem behind my question was that people seem to use lexicographical and alphabetical order (or sorting) interchangeably, because I asked too general. When put in context, lexicographical sort is technically different. I was able to clarify for myself the terminology somewhat with the American Heritage Dictionary and Wikipedia, some lexicographical sorting tutorial, and this discussion about an algorithm problem.
In a Nutshell
Alphabetical = Arranged in the customary order of the letters of a language.
Alphanumeric = Consisting of both letters and numbers.
Lexicographical = Sorting on strings (strings need to have the same length), as e.g. in date formats as in YYYY/MM/DD
UPDATE:
Lexicographical sorting in terms of Java referring to capitalized entries are listed before entries in lower cap, like so:
- Aa
- Ab
- Ac
- aa
- ab
- ac
- etc. p.p.
