At 04:26 PM 5/9/01 -0700, Frank Radice wrote:
>The SOUNDEX function does not give the same results
>as the documentation.
>The value of (SOUNDEX('Schmidtzel')) = S253, whereas
>the documentation says it should be S532. The rule
>about eliminating the first number in the code if it
>is the same as the code number for the first letter
>seems to be ignored in the calculation using the
>SOUNDEX function. Does anyone else use this function?
>Any thoughts on the way RBase computes this value?
>Behaves the same in 6.5+ DOS and 6.5+ Windows versions.
Frank,
First of all, THANKS for bringing the online documentation
error to our attention.
I'll have to nominate you for the:
"Keeping RBTI Team On Their Toes" Award.
Sami Aaron (The 2001 Conference M.C.), please note.
Secondly, We need to correct our online documentation.
If it states that "eliminating the first number in the
code if it is the same as the code number for the first
letter" has never been the way that we do soundex. Double
letters are treated as single letters though.
The value for (SOUNDEX('Schmidtzel')) = S253 is what we
expect because the "c" contributes the "2", the "h" is
skipped, the "m" contributes the "5", the "i" is skipped
as a vowel, and the "d" contributes the "3".
We'll change the documentation to match what we do in
the code. We have not changed our method since we first
put it in. Some people have built index columns using out
soundex function and to change the formula now would mess
up their values. This is not something we want to do.
We do have some enhancements over the basic soundex
algorithm in the way we can treat "kn" like "n" for words
like knight.
Very Best Regards,
Razzak.
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