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Oracle9i SQL Reference
Release 2 (9.2)

Part Number A96540-02
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SOUNDEX

Syntax

soundex::=

Text description of functions80.gif follows
Text description of soundex


Purpose

SOUNDEX returns a character string containing the phonetic representation of char. This function lets you compare words that are spelled differently, but sound alike in English.

The phonetic representation is defined in The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 3: Sorting and Searching, by Donald E. Knuth, as follows:

char can be of any of the datatypes CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, or NVARCHAR2. The return value is the same datatype as char.


Note:

This function does not support CLOB data directly. However, CLOBs can be passed in as arguments through implicit data conversion. Please refer to "Datatype Comparison Rules" for more information.


Examples

The following example returns the employees whose last names are a phonetic representation of "Smyth":

SELECT last_name, first_name
     FROM hr.employees
     WHERE SOUNDEX(last_name)
         = SOUNDEX('SMYTHE');

LAST_NAME  FIRST_NAME
---------- ----------
Smith      Lindsey
Smith      William