Hybrid comparison for unicode text strings consisting primarily of ASCII characters

A computing device, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• memory;
• and
• one or more programs stored in the memory and configured for execution by the one or more processors, the one or more programs comprising instructions for:
• receiving a first text string S=s1 s2 . . . sn having Unicode encoding and a second text string T=t1 t2 . . . tm having Unicode encoding, wherein n and m are positive integers, and s1, s2, . . . , sn and t1, t2, . . . , tm are Unicode characters;
• computing, for the first text string S, a first string weight ƒ(S) according to a weight function ƒ, computed according to:
• when it is determined that S consists entirely of ASCII characters, ƒ(S)=S;
• when it is determined that S consists of ASCII characters and one or more accented ASCII characters that are replaceable by corresponding ASCII characters, ƒ(S)=g(s1) g(s2) . . . g(sn), wherein g(si)=si when si is an ASCII character and g(si)=si′ when si is an accented ASCII character that is replaceable by the corresponding ASCII character si′;
• and
• when S includes one or more non-replaceable non-ASCII characters, the first string weight ƒ(S) is a concatenation of an ASCII weight prefix ƒA(S) and a Unicode weight suffix ƒU (S);
• computing, a second string weight ƒ(T), for the second text string T, according to the weight function ƒ;
• and
• determining whether the first text string and the second text string are equal by comparing the first string weight to the second string weight.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs configured for execution by a computing device having one or more processors and memory, the one or more programs comprising instructions for:

• receiving a first text string S=s1 s2 . . . sn having Unicode encoding and a second text string T=t1 t2 . . . tm having Unicode encoding, wherein n and m are positive integers, and s1, s2, . . . , sn and t1, t2, . . . , tm are Unicode characters;
• computing, for the first text string S, a first string weight ƒ(S) according to a weight function ƒ, computed according to:
• when it is determined that S consists entirely of ASCII characters, ƒ(S)=S;
• when it is determined that S consists of ASCII characters and one or more accented ASCII characters that are replaceable by corresponding ASCII characters, ƒ(S)=g(s1) g(s2) . . . g(sn), wherein g(si)=si when si is an ASCII character and g(si)=si′ when si is an accented ASCII character that is replaceable by the corresponding ASCII character si′;
• and
• when S includes one or more non-replaceable non-ASCII characters, the first string weight ƒ(S) is a concatenation of an ASCII weight prefix ƒA(S) and a Unicode weight suffix ƒU(S);
• computing, a second string weight ƒ(T), for the second text string T, according to the weight function ƒ;
• and
• determining whether the first text string and the second text string are equal by comparing the first string weight to the second string weight.