Requiring or making a distinction between accented and unaccented forms of a letter and between different accents. In any situation where a computer program is reading characters, a decision has to be made whether to treat each accented form of a letter as a different character. In most cases it is appropriate to do so; however, accents are often ignored in alphabetical sorting and in indexed searches. Modern database management systems generally offer extensive facilities to specify which data is accent-sensitive and which is not.