@@ -99,6 +99,22 @@ public static int compareUtf8Strings(String left, String right) {
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// used to represent code points greater than 0xFFFF which have 4-byte UTF-8 representations
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// and are lexicographically greater than the 1, 2, or 3-byte representations of code points
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// less than or equal to 0xFFFF.
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+ //
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+ // An example of why Case 2 is required is comparing the following two Unicode code points:
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+ //
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+ // |-----------------------|------------|---------------------|-----------------|
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+ // | Name | Code Point | UTF-8 Encoding | UTF-16 Encoding |
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+ // |-----------------------|------------|---------------------|-----------------|
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+ // | Replacement Character | U+FFFD | 0xEF 0xBF 0xBD | 0xFFFD |
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+ // | Grinning Face | U+1F600 | 0xF0 0x9F 0x98 0x80 | 0xD83D 0xDE00 |
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+ // |-----------------------|------------|---------------------|-----------------|
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+ //
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+ // A lexicographical comparison of the UTF-8 encodings of these code points would order
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+ // "Replacement Character" _before_ "Grinning Face" because 0xEF is less than 0xF0. However, a
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+ // direct comparison of the UTF-16 code units, as would be done in case 1, would erroneously
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+ // produce the _opposite_ ordering, because 0xFFFD is _greater than_ 0xD83D. As it turns out,
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+ // this relative ordering holds for all comparisons of UTF-16 code points requiring a surrogate
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+ // pair with those that do not.
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final int length = Math .min (left .length (), right .length ());
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for (int i = 0 ; i < length ; i ++) {
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final char leftChar = left .charAt (i );
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