Text::Soundex man page on MirBSD

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Text::Soundex(3p)Perl Programmers Reference GuidText::Soundex(3p)

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 sur-
     names) into a small space using a simple model which approx-
     imates 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

perl v5.8.8		   2005-02-05				1

Text::Soundex(3p)Perl Programmers Reference GuidText::Soundex(3p)

     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 pronun-
     ciation.

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

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

perl v5.8.8		   2005-02-05				2

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