SOUNDEX

[bdi]

Anyone used SOUNDEX in a production query before? I am working on methods to cleanup data for reporting, and was thinking this might be a good function for nailing a lot of typos. The theory is good, but does it really work? And is it fast enough to be useful in production?

I'll be running some tests, so I will probably be posting back.

Thanks

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[bdi]

well, it appears that this function is fast enough. However, it is not accurate enough for this purpose.

From SQL Books Online:

Quote:

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SOUNDEX converts an alpha string to a four-character code to find similar-sounding words or names. The first character of the code is the first character of character_expression and the second through fourth characters of the code are numbers. Vowels in character_expression are ignored unless they are the first letter of the string. String functions can be nested.

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This would be great if I were creating a search engine which does not need to be exact. However, in the current situation two companies 'Ameritech' and 'Ameritrade' both have the same SOUNDEX code, and therefore would match. This will not work when creating a final report for a customer. It is to risky.

Anyway, it's a nice function. Well worth my 20 minutes playing with it.

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