Text::Soundex - phpMan

Text::Soundex(3pm)     Perl Programmers Reference Guide     Text::Soundex(3pm)



NAME
       Text::Soundex - Implementation of the Soundex Algorithm as Described by Knuth

SYNOPSIS
         use Text::Soundex;

         $code = soundex $string;            # get soundex code for a string
         @codes = soundex @list;             # get list of codes for list of strings

         # set value to be returned for strings without soundex code

         $soundex_nocode = ’Z000’;

DESCRIPTION
       This module implements the soundex algorithm as described by Donald Knuth in Volume
       3 of The Art of Computer Programming.  The algorithm is intended to hash words (in
       particular surnames) into a small space using a simple model which approximates the
       sound of the word when spoken by an English speaker.  Each word is reduced to a
       four character string, the first character being an upper case letter and the
       remaining three being digits.

       If there is no soundex code representation for a string then the value of
       $soundex_nocode is returned.  This is initially set to "undef", but many people
       seem to prefer an unlikely value like "Z000" (how unlikely this is depends on the
       data set being dealt with.)  Any value can be assigned to $soundex_nocode.

       In scalar context "soundex" returns the soundex code of its first argument, and in
       list context a list is returned in which each element is the soundex code for the
       corresponding argument passed to "soundex" e.g.

         @codes = soundex qw(Mike Stok);

       leaves @codes containing "(’M200’, ’S320’)".

EXAMPLES
       Knuth’s examples of various names and the soundex codes they map to are listed
       below:

         Euler, Ellery -> E460
         Gauss, Ghosh -> G200
         Hilbert, Heilbronn -> H416
         Knuth, Kant -> K530
         Lloyd, Ladd -> L300
         Lukasiewicz, Lissajous -> L222

       so:

         $code = soundex ’Knuth’;              # $code contains ’K530’
         @list = soundex qw(Lloyd Gauss);      # @list contains ’L300’, ’G200’

LIMITATIONS
       As the soundex algorithm was originally used a long time ago in the US it considers
       only the English alphabet and pronunciation.

       As it is mapping a large space (arbitrary length strings) onto a small space (sin-
       gle letter plus 3 digits) no inference can be made about the similarity of two
       strings which end up with the same soundex code.  For example, both "Hilbert" and
       "Heilbronn" end up with a soundex code of "H416".

AUTHOR
       This code was implemented by Mike Stok ("stok AT cybercom.net") from the description
       given by Knuth.  Ian Phillipps ("ian AT pipex.net") and Rich Pinder
       ("rpinder AT hsc.edu") supplied ideas and spotted mistakes.



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