exnirad@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au (Nirad Sharma) (08/31/90)
I have been using the SOUNDEX function supplied with Oracle V5 and have found it to be very convenient except that it may be too ambiguous. I noticed that SOUNDEX only returns a 5 (or 4 - I forget) character string. Is it possible that other soundex algorithms allow less ambiguity by making use of more characters ? If so and if the source (pref. c) exists could someone tell me how to get it, please ? While I'm at it, are there any FTP sites holding various Oracle bits e.g. forms, scripts and the like. ? Thanks for any help Nirad Sharma (exnirad@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au) Continuing Education Unit The University of Queensland AUSTRALIA
buckland@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Tony Buckland) (08/31/90)
In article <1990Aug31.020725.6451@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au> exnirad@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au (Nirad Sharma) writes: >I have been using the SOUNDEX function supplied with Oracle V5 and have >found it to be very convenient except that it may be too ambiguous. I >noticed that SOUNDEX only returns a 5 (or 4 - I forget) character string. >Is it possible that other soundex algorithms allow less ambiguity by making >use of more characters ? This goes *way* back, about 30 years to when I did payroll work, but if I recall correctly, the Soundex algorithm (pre-computer, of course) we used then always produced the same small number of characters so that codes could be compared. Varying length would defeat this purpose, and a longer fixed length would require progressively more useless padding of short codes for progressively more names as the fixed length increased.