diff -r a37e824f5c17 lucene/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/codecs/FixedGapTermsIndexWriter.java
--- a/lucene/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/codecs/FixedGapTermsIndexWriter.java	Sun Sep 19 10:18:49 2010 +0000
+++ b/lucene/src/java/org/apache/lucene/index/codecs/FixedGapTermsIndexWriter.java	Sun Sep 19 06:42:24 2010 -0400
@@ -76,6 +76,24 @@
     return writer;
   }
 
+  /** NOTE: if your codec does not sort in unicode code
+   *  point order, you must override this method, to simply
+   *  return indexedTerm.length. */
+  protected int indexedTermPrefixLength(BytesRef priorTerm, BytesRef indexedTerm) {
+    // As long as codec sorts terms in unicode codepoint
+    // order, we can safely strip off the non-distinguishing
+    // suffix to save RAM in the loaded terms index.
+    final int limit = Math.min(priorTerm.length, indexedTerm.length);
+    int minPrefixDiff = Math.min(1+priorTerm.length, indexedTerm.length);
+    for(int byteIdx=0;byteIdx<limit;byteIdx++) {
+      if (priorTerm.bytes[priorTerm.offset+byteIdx] != indexedTerm.bytes[indexedTerm.offset+byteIdx]) {
+        minPrefixDiff = byteIdx+1;
+        break;
+      }
+    }
+    return minPrefixDiff;
+  }
+
   private class SimpleFieldWriter extends FieldWriter {
     final FieldInfo fieldInfo;
     int numIndexTerms;
@@ -108,20 +126,11 @@
       // First term is first indexed term:
       if (0 == (numTerms++ % termIndexInterval)) {
 
-        // we can safely strip off the non-distinguishing
-        // suffix to save RAM in the loaded terms index.
-        final int limit = Math.min(lastTerm.length, text.length);
-        int minPrefixDiff = Math.min(1+lastTerm.length, text.length);
-        for(int byteIdx=0;byteIdx<limit;byteIdx++) {
-          if (lastTerm.bytes[lastTerm.offset+byteIdx] != text.bytes[text.offset+byteIdx]) {
-            minPrefixDiff = byteIdx+1;
-            break;
-          }
-        }
+        final int indexedTermLength = indexedTermPrefixLength(lastTerm, text);
 
         // write only the min prefix that shows the diff
         // against prior term
-        out.writeBytes(text.bytes, text.offset, minPrefixDiff);
+        out.writeBytes(text.bytes, text.offset, indexedTermLength);
 
         if (termLengths.length == numIndexTerms) {
           termLengths = ArrayUtil.grow(termLengths);
@@ -136,9 +145,9 @@
         lastTermsPointer = fp;
 
         // save term length (in bytes)
-        assert minPrefixDiff <= Short.MAX_VALUE;
-        termLengths[numIndexTerms] = (short) minPrefixDiff;
-        totTermLength += minPrefixDiff;
+        assert indexedTermLength <= Short.MAX_VALUE;
+        termLengths[numIndexTerms] = (short) indexedTermLength;
+        totTermLength += indexedTermLength;
 
         lastTerm.copy(text);
         numIndexTerms++;
diff -r a37e824f5c17 lucene/src/test/org/apache/lucene/TestExternalCodecs.java
--- a/lucene/src/test/org/apache/lucene/TestExternalCodecs.java	Sun Sep 19 10:18:49 2010 +0000
+++ b/lucene/src/test/org/apache/lucene/TestExternalCodecs.java	Sun Sep 19 06:42:24 2010 -0400
@@ -508,7 +508,15 @@
       TermsIndexWriterBase indexWriter;
       boolean success = false;
       try {
-        indexWriter = new FixedGapTermsIndexWriter(state);
+        indexWriter = new FixedGapTermsIndexWriter(state) {
+            // We sort in reverse unicode order, so, we must
+            // disable the suffix-stripping opto that
+            // FixedGapTermsIndexWriter does by default!
+            @Override
+            protected int indexedTermPrefixLength(BytesRef priorTerm, BytesRef indexedTerm) {
+              return indexedTerm.length;
+            }
+          };
         success = true;
       } finally {
         if (!success) {