Re: Soundex routine in RPG

Hi, Chris:

Soundex was originally developed for the Census Bureau, and was
intended only to encode the "sound" of "names" (family names).
Also, it was developed well before computers, and was originally
intended for humans to translate written names into the Soundex
(index) codes, and then used to "file" paper documents under this
index code.

I would argue that "Your City Car Dealer" should be treated as
four words, and should result in four separate SoundEx "keys".

Then, you could design a database with a long enough "key" so
you could "concatenate" the keys...  you get the idea?

Regards,

Mark S. Waterbury

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Bipes" <chris.bipes@cross-check.com>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 4:04 PM
Subject: RE: Soundex routine in RPG


> Why truncate to 4 positions?  This is what has bothered me about Soundex.
> We have business names that we want to encode.  This could be such things
as
> "Your City Car Dealer"  or "Chain Store #25"  I don't want to code on only
> the first part of the name, i.e. "Santa Rosa Car Dealer" would code on
> "Santa" only.  So I like to compress out the spaces and code on the full
> word.  I also strip off basic words like "The".  Is there any reason for
> keeping it to 4 positions?
>
> Chris
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Loyd Goodbar [mailto:loyd@blackrobes.net]
>
> Basically, you cycle each letter. Always keep the first letter, then look
up
> a
> number for each consecutive letter, eliminating repeating values. Vowels
and
> w/h/y are ignored. The resulting value is four positions long. Pad up to
> four
> positions with zeroes, or truncate to four positions if you created a long
> soundex.
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