Hi,
You are doing everything fine, however, soundex is not a perfect system and does not
always work. It does simplify some types of queries. But in the vast majority of cases
I don't think that it is worth the bother.
It doesn't actually link all the same sounding sirnames, if there were a system like
that life would be nice and simple, however (and correct me if I am wrong) there isn't
one. Soundex was an attempt and it doesn't really work. It is used by the US
government but it just means you have to search under a couple of different soundex
codes rather than searching under 8 or 9 different spellings.
See this example.
mysql> select soundex('morton'), soundex('moreton'), soundex('morten');
+-------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
| soundex('morton') | soundex('moreton') | soundex('morten') |
+-------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
| M635 | M635 | M635 |
+-------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> select soundex('callaghan'), soundex('callahan'), soundex('calahan');
+----------------------+---------------------+--------------------+
| soundex('callaghan') | soundex('callahan') | soundex('calahan') |
+----------------------+---------------------+--------------------+
| C425 | C450 | C450 |
+----------------------+---------------------+--------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
mysql>
I hope this helps.
Richard
>> I want to use SOUNDEX for name queries, but I don't
>> seem to be doing it correctly.
>> As a test, I made a small table and popluated it
>> with my name. My goal is to be able to find my name
>> 'Callaghan', with its most common misspelling
>> 'Callahan'.
>> I've read the MySQL doc, so I know how to actually
>> invoke soundex at the mysql prompt. I read an
>> article that said soundex queries move more quickly
>> if you add a column for the soundex.
>> Thus:
>> CREATE TABLE sound (
>> id tinyint(3) NOT NULL auto_increment,
>> name varchar(100) default NULL,
>> sound varchar(100) default NULL,
>> PRIMARY KEY (id)
>> ) TYPE=MyISAM;
>> select soundex('Callaghan');
>> result = C425
>> INSERT INTO sound VALUES (1, 'Callaghan', 'C425');
>> Simple enough. Now, I expected all three of the
>> following queries to return a value.
>> select id from sound where sound =
>> soundex('Callaghan');
>> returns 1 records
>> select id from sound where sound =
>> soundex('Callahan');
>> returns 0 records
>> select id from sound where name =
>> soundex('Callaghan');
>> returns 0 records
>> I'm missing something obvious here, but I've read
>> the doc and I'm not sure what's wrong.
>> --
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