You say "on the cheap." Well that means they get whatever's standard with no customisation, right? That's what soundex is. It may not be great, but it's certainly easy. Demanding clients with a tight budget really need to be dealt with firmly. They're business killers.
The thing is that phonetic tokenisation algorithms are language based, i.e. soundex is designed to work for English. However, it would be by far the easiest to implement. There's a udf here: http://cflib.org/udf.cfm?ID=39 . There are a few variations on Soundex which could be investigated. There's also metaphone which is a bit more complex to implement. I would store the soundex code for each name in the database, with an index on this column, and then use the soundex code of the input data as the search key. In this way it will be just as quick as a regular search and you can do it whether or not the dbms supports Soundex. Combined with regular searching perhaps with typo support from verity, and that would have to be way more than a budget client could expect. Matthew Walker Electric Sheep Web http://www.electricsheep.co.nz/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Haggerty, Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 7:34 AM Subject: OT: SQL Name Sounds Like Matching > I have a feeling I am going to be working on this one for a while... > > One of my more demanding clients is asking for a name matching solution on > the cheap. What it needs to do is find where a name 'sounds like' another > name, even if it is in another language (including Middle Eastern and > Oriental names). In addition, I need to be able to eliminate false positives > wherever possible, in order to come up with the most consise list of > matches. > > I really don't know where to start. SQL Server and Oracle both offer soundex > support, which I suppose could be used to generate some values for > comparisons. But I am not sure how this would work when different languages > come into play. > > Does anyone have / know of any books / resources / advice on how to do this? > > M > > > > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Signup for the Fusion Authority news alert and keep up with the latest news in ColdFusion and related topics. http://www.fusionauthority.com/signup.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
