SOUNDEX
SOUNDEX function allows phonetic conversions of strings.
COMMAND SYNTAX
SOUNDEX(expression)
SYNTAX ELEMENTS
expression may evaluate to any data type but the function will only give meaningful results for English words.
NOTES
The phonetic equivalent of a string is calculated as the first alphabetic character in the string followed by a 1 to 3-digit representation of the rest of the word. The digit string is calculated from the following table:
| Characters | Value code |
|---|---|
| B F P V | 1 |
| C G J K Q S X Z | 2 |
| D T | 3 |
| L | 4 |
| M N | 5 |
| R | 6 |
All characters not contained in the above table are ignored. The function is case insensitive and identical sequences of a character are interpreted as a single instance of the character.
The idea is to provide a crude method of identifying words such as last names even if they are not spelt correctly. The function is not foolproof should not be the sole method of identifying a word.
EXAMPLE
INPUT Lastname Lastname = SOUNDEX(Lastname) *search the databases