Assigned ordering among the characters used by the computer is known as ______.

Concept: A collating sequence is the fixed ordering assigned to the characters of a character set (for example, ASCII), normally taken from each character's underlying numeric code. Whenever a computer compares two characters, or sorts a list of names or strings, it is really comparing those codes — so the collating sequence is what decides that 'A' comes before 'a', and that '2' comes before '9'.

Application: The stem describes exactly this idea — an assigned ordering among the characters a computer uses — which is the standard definition of a collating sequence. In ASCII every character carries a code from 0 to 127, and the characters are ordered by increasing code:

So under the ASCII collating sequence a space sorts before any digit, digits sort before uppercase letters, and uppercase letters sort before lowercase letters. That is why a plain byte-wise comparison places "Zebra" before "apple" ('Z' = 90, 'a' = 97). Case-insensitive or language-aware sorting is obtained by choosing a different collating sequence, not by changing the characters themselves.

Cross-check — why the other terms don't fit:

• 'Character sequence' only means a string of characters placed one after another (e.g., 'cat'); it says nothing about how characters are ranked or ordered relative to each other.

• 'Linear sequence' describes elements arranged one after another, like a list or array — a structural property, not a defined comparison rule between characters.

• 'Data sequence' is a generic term for any ordered set of data (numbers, records, etc.) and is not specific to characters or to an assigned ranking rule.

Since only 'collating sequence' names the assigned ranking of characters based on their codes, it is the correct term.