Editing Endianness (section)

=== Text ===

When character (text) strings are to be compared with one another, e.g. in order to support some mechanism like [[Sorting algorithm|sorting]], this is very frequently done [[lexicographically]] where a single positional element (character) also has a positional value. Lexicographical comparison means almost everywhere: first character ranks highest – as in the telephone book. Almost all machines which can do this using a single instruction are big-endian or at least mixed-endian.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

Integer numbers written as text are always represented most significant digit first in memory, which is similar to big-endian, independently of [[text direction]].