Sorting compound names

[Robert Brenstein]

>In sorting a list of records for a bibliography, one may want to 
>sort first by author (with or without considering name prefixes) and 
>then by date -- in fact, this is quite common. What I output is not 
>just the names, but a whole citation (e.g. Brenstein, R (2004) Posts 
>to the Valentina list. 45:1-3). Each element I have listed here 
>(author, date, title, volume, pages, and more is kept in a different 
>indexed field and assembled to yield the citation above).

This is exactly what I am talking about. You call it bibliography. I 
call publications. Others call it litrefs (literature references). 
Same thing in reality.

>
>The authors field of *one* record might be
>
>Zasukhin, R
>Brenstein, R
>von Abel, GE
>
>The the authors of this record will be compared to the authors of 
>every other record. In this particular instance, I would want this 
>record to sort *before* another record with these authors:
>
>Zasukhin, R
>Brenstein, R
>Bethany, D
>
>Jon

I don't think valentina can do this type of stuff for you. Too much 
logic involved with multiple-level hierarchy. I think you need to 
roll your own functions. As I said, this is what I am planning.

More examples of interesting names that affect sorting

van der Waals, H
Brenstein-Smith, E
Capistani Macuendo, RH
Macuendo Macuendo, GT

And then some last names are common enough that sorting the first 
names (initials) will need to come in play as well.

Robert