soundex

Since soundex() does not produce optimal results for German languagewe have written a function to implement the so called Kölner Phonetik(Cologne Phonetic).Please find the code below in the hope it might be useful:<?php/** * A function for retrieving the Kölner Phonetik value of a string *  * As described at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kölner_Phonetik * Based on Hans Joachim Postel: Die Kölner Phonetik.  * Ein Verfahren zur Identifizierung von Personennamen auf der  * Grundlage der Gestaltanalyse.  * in: IBM-Nachrichten, 19. Jahrgang, 1969, S. 925-931 *  * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the * GNU General Public License for more details. * * @package phonetics * @version 1.0 * @link http://www.einfachmarke.de * @license GPL 3.0 <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> * @copyright  2008 by einfachmarke.de * @author Nicolas Zimmer <nicolas dot zimmer at einfachmarke.de> */function cologne_phon($word){      /**  * @param  string  $word string to be analyzed  * @return string  $value represents the Kölner Phonetik value  * @access public  */      //prepare for processing    $word=strtolower($word);    $substitution=array(            "ä"=>"a",            "ö"=>"o",            "ü"=>"u",            "ß"=>"ss",            "ph"=>"f"            );    foreach ($substitution as $letter=>$substitution) {        $word=str_replace($letter,$substitution,$word);    }        $len=strlen($word);        //Rule for exeptions    $exceptionsLeading=array(    4=>array("ca","ch","ck","cl","co","cq","cu","cx"),    8=>array("dc","ds","dz","tc","ts","tz")    );        $exceptionsFollowing=array("sc","zc","cx","kx","qx");        //Table for coding    $codingTable=array(    0=>array("a","e","i","j","o","u","y"),    1=>array("b","p"),    2=>array("d","t"),    3=>array("f","v","w"),    4=>array("c","g","k","q"),    48=>array("x"),    5=>array("l"),    6=>array("m","n"),    7=>array("r"),    8=>array("c","s","z"),    );        for ($i=0;$i<$len;$i++){        $value[$i]="";                //Exceptions        if ($i==0 AND $word[$i].$word[$i+1]=="cr") $value[$i]=4;                foreach ($exceptionsLeading as $code=>$letters) {            if (in_array($word[$i].$word[$i+1],$letters)){                    $value[$i]=$code;}                }                if ($i!=0 AND (in_array($word[$i-1].$word[$i], $exceptionsFollowing))) {            value[$i]=8;        }                                //Normal encoding        if ($value[$i]==""){                foreach ($codingTable as $code=>$letters) {                    if (in_array($word[$i],$letters))$value[$i]=$code;                }            }        }        //delete double values    $len=count($value);        for ($i=1;$i<$len;$i++){        if ($value[$i]==$value[$i-1]) $value[$i]="";    }        //delete vocals     for ($i=1;$i>$len;$i++){//omitting first characer code and h        if ($value[$i]==0) $value[$i]="";    }            $value=array_filter($value);    $value=implode("",$value);        return $value;    }?>

administrator at zinious dot com:Sorry but your code wasnt soundex complianthere were my results with your code, my code, and the default..string: restR620 perform administrator's function 0.009452R230 perform cg's function 0.001779R230 perform default soundex function 9.4999999999956E-005string: resetR620 perform administrator's function 0.0055900000000001R230 perform cg's function 0.00091799999999997R230 perform default soundex function 0.00010600000000005i dunno why the default, every once in a while, will for some reason be 9.xxx. very odd i think..my code is at the bottom.. these tests were before the soundex modification as i discribe below..btw for all the original specs on the soundex algorithm gotohttp://www.star-shine.net/~functionifelse/GFD/?word=soundexdalibor dot toth at podravka dot hr:yes it is perhaps sad that it gives you the same code,even metaphone has that problem..but one might not want to be so accurate.. if somoneis on search engine.. lets call it shmoogle lookingfor "php array reset" and search for "php array rest"then shmoogle might return stuff about beds and such..(if they were all stupid and didnt use the first wordsas more important) so anyways shmoogle might need it tobe less accurate in such cases.. but nonetheless..my fix for this is to add the number of syllables at the end of the string making it 5 characters long..this would work as fallows..code at: http://star-shine.net/~functionifelse/cg_soundex.phpor if you wanted to just use the default soundex function$str = soundex($str).cg_sylc($str);revolutionary more or less.. problly less...This function is only meant for one word though.. i'd like to see someonemodify it to use split and run it through a loop to get each words cg_soundexthat'll be fun ;)i would also like to sujest to the php zend apache kinda people who make phpto add an optional additional variable the user can specify as fallowssoundex("string",SYL);which would return the number of syllables at the end of the stringhighly accurate sound testing woo! also you could add VOW for vowelsand CONS for consonant or whatever else someone would want..but i really think the number of syllables will be pleanty efficiant.umm.. if this helps anyone your welcome.. ummm.. good luck in allyour php adventures.. oh... and the final resultssyllables1 rest2 resetmetaphoneRST restRST resetsoundexR230 restR230 resetstring: restR2301 perform cg's function 0.00211R230 perform default soundex function 0.00011299999999997string: resetR2302 perform cg's function 0.001691R230 perform default soundex function 0.00010399999999999the default function is a tad bit faster..so maybe they will add this option and we'll have speed and accuracy.SILENT WIND OF DOOM WOOSH!

I made some improvements to the "Cologne Phonetic" function of niclas zimmer. Key and value of the arrays are inverted to uses simple arrays instead of multidimensional arrays. Therefore all loops and iterations are not longer necessary to find the matching value  for a char.I put the function into a static class and moved the array declarations outside the function.The result is more reliable and five times faster than the original.<?php   class CologneHash() {    static $eLeading = array("ca" => 4, "ch" => 4, "ck" => 4, "cl" => 4, "co" => 4, "cq" => 4, "cu" => 4, "cx" => 4, "dc" => 8, "ds" => 8, "dz" => 8, "tc" => 8, "ts" => 8, "tz" => 8);     static $eFollow = array("sc", "zc", "cx", "kx", "qx");    static $codingTable = array("a" => 0, "e" => 0, "i" => 0, "j" => 0, "o" => 0, "u" => 0, "y" => 0,        "b" => 1, "p" => 1, "d" => 2, "t" => 2, "f" => 3, "v" => 3, "w" => 3, "c" => 4, "g" => 4, "k" => 4, "q" => 4,        "x" => 48, "l" => 5, "m" => 6, "n" => 6, "r" => 7, "c" => 8, "s" => 8, "z" => 8);    public static function getCologneHash($word)    {        if (empty($word)) return false;        $len = strlen($word);         for ($i = 0; $i < $len; $i++) {            $value[$i] = "";             //Exceptions            if ($i == 0 && $word[$i] . $word[$i + 1] == "cr") {                $value[$i] = 4;            }             if (isset($word[$i + 1]) && isset(self::$eLeading[$word[$i] . $word[$i + 1]])) {                $value[$i] = self::$eLeading[$word[$i] . $word[$i + 1]];            }            if ($i != 0 && (in_array($word[$i - 1] . $word[$i], self::$eFollow))) {                $value[$i] = 8;            }             // normal encoding            if ($value[$i]=="") {                if (isset(self::$codingTable[$word[$i]])) {                    $value[$i] = self::$codingTable[$word[$i]];                }            }        }        // delete double values        $len = count($value);         for ($i = 1; $i < $len; $i++) {            if ($value[$i] == $value[$i - 1]) {                $value[$i] = "";            }        }         // delete vocals        for ($i = 1; $i > $len; $i++) {            // omitting first characer code and h            if ($value[$i] == 0) {                $value[$i] = "";            }        }         $value = array_filter($value);        $value = implode("", $value);         return $value;    } }?>

<?php// https://github.com/Fruneau/Fruneau.github.io/blob/master/assets/soundex_fr.php// http://blog.mymind.fr/blog/2007/03/15/soundex-francais/function soundex_fr($sIn){    static $convVIn, $convVOut, $convGuIn, $convGuOut, $accents;    if (!isset($convGuIn)) {        $accents = array('É' => 'E', 'È' => 'E', 'Ë' => 'E', 'Ê' => 'E',                    'Á' => 'A', 'À' => 'A', 'Ä' => 'A', 'Â' => 'A', 'Å' => 'A', 'Ã' => 'A',                    'Ï' => 'I', 'Î' => 'I', 'Ì' => 'I', 'Í' => 'I',                    'Ô' => 'O', 'Ö' => 'O', 'Ò' => 'O', 'Ó' => 'O', 'Õ' => 'O', 'Ø' => 'O',                    'Ú' => 'U', 'Ù' => 'U', 'Û' => 'U', 'Ü' => 'U',                    'Ç' => 'C', 'Ñ' => 'N', 'Ç' => 'S', '¿' => 'E',                    'é' => 'e', 'è' => 'e', 'ë' => 'e', 'ê' => 'e',                    'á' => 'a', 'à' => 'a', 'ä' => 'a', 'â' => 'a', 'å' => 'a', 'ã' => 'a',                    'ï' => 'i', 'î' => 'i', 'ì' => 'i', 'í' => 'i',                    'ô' => 'o', 'ö' => 'o', 'ò' => 'o', 'ó' => 'o', 'õ' => 'o', 'ø' => 'o',                    'ú' => 'u', 'ù' => 'u', 'û' => 'u', 'ü' => 'u',                    'ç' => 'c', 'ñ' => 'n');        $convGuIn  = array( 'GUI', 'GUE', 'GA', 'GO', 'GU', 'SCI', 'SCE', 'SC', 'CA', 'CO',                            'CU', 'QU', 'Q', 'CC', 'CK', 'G', 'ST', 'PH');        $convGuOut = array( 'KI', 'KE', 'KA', 'KO', 'K', 'SI', 'SE', 'SK', 'KA', 'KO',                            'KU', 'K', 'K', 'K', 'K', 'J', 'T', 'F');        $convVIn   = array( '/E?(AU)/', '/([EA])?[UI]([NM])([^EAIOUY]|$)/', '/[AE]O?[NM]([^AEIOUY]|$)/',                            '/[EA][IY]([NM]?[^NM]|$)/', '/(^|[^OEUIA])(OEU|OE|EU)([^OEUIA]|$)/', '/OI/',                            '/(ILLE?|I)/', '/O(U|W)/', '/O[NM]($|[^EAOUIY])/', '/(SC|S|C)H/',                            '/([^AEIOUY1])[^AEIOUYLKTPNR]([UAO])([^AEIOUY])/', '/([^AEIOUY]|^)([AUO])[^AEIOUYLKTP]([^AEIOUY1])/', '/^KN/',                            '/^PF/', '/C([^AEIOUY]|$)/',  '/E(Z|R)$/',                            '/C/', '/Z$/', '/(?<!^)Z+/', '/H/', '/W/');        $convVOut  = array( 'O', '1\3', 'A\1',                            'E\1', '\1E\3', 'O',                            'Y', 'U', 'O\1', '9',                             '\1\2\3', '\1\2\3', 'N',                            'F', 'K\1', 'E',                            'S', 'SE', 'S', '', 'V');    }    if ( $sIn === '' ) return '    ';    $sIn = strtr( $sIn, $accents);    $sIn = strtoupper( $sIn );    $sIn = preg_replace( '`[^A-Z]`', '', $sIn );    if ( strlen( $sIn ) === 1 ) return $sIn . '   ';    $sIn = str_replace( $convGuIn, $convGuOut, $sIn );    $sIn = preg_replace( '`(.)\1`', '$1', $sIn );    $sIn = preg_replace( $convVIn, $convVOut, $sIn);    $sIn = preg_replace( '`L?[TDX]?S?$`', '', $sIn );    $sIn = preg_replace( '`(?!^)Y([^AEOU]|$)`', '\1', $sIn);    $sIn = preg_replace( '`(?!^)[EA]`', '', $sIn);    return substr( $sIn . '    ', 0, 4);}?>

soundex() unfortunately is very sensitive about the first character. It is not possible to use it and have Clansy and Klansy return the same value. If you want to do a phonetic search on such names you will still need to write a routine to evaluate C452 as being similar to K452.

<?php/*    SOUNDEX FRENCH Frederic Bouchery     26-Sep-2003http://www.php-help.net/sources-php/a.french.adapted.soundex.289.html*/function soundex2( $sIn ) {   // Si il n'y a pas de mot, on sort immédiatement   if ( $sIn === '' ) return '    ';   // On met tout en minuscule   $sIn = strtoupper( $sIn );   // On supprime les accents   $sIn = strtr( $sIn, 'ÂÄÀÇÈÉÊË&#338;ÎÏÔÖÙÛÜ', 'AAASEEEEEIIOOUUU' );   // On supprime tout ce qui n'est pas une lettre   $sIn = preg_replace( '`[^A-Z]`', '', $sIn );   // Si la chaîne ne fait qu'un seul caractère, on sort avec.   if ( strlen( $sIn ) === 1 ) return $sIn . '   ';   // on remplace les consonnances primaires   $convIn = array( 'GUI', 'GUE', 'GA', 'GO', 'GU', 'CA', 'CO', 'CU','Q', 'CC', 'CK' );   $convOut = array( 'KI', 'KE', 'KA', 'KO', 'K', 'KA', 'KO', 'KU', 'K','K', 'K' );   $sIn = str_replace( $convIn, $convOut, $sIn );   // on remplace les voyelles sauf le Y et sauf la première par A   $sIn = preg_replace( '`(?<!^)[EIOU]`', 'A', $sIn );   // on remplace les préfixes puis on conserve la première lettre   // et on fait les remplacements complémentaires   $convIn = array( '`^KN`', '`^(PH|PF)`', '`^MAC`', '`^SCH`', '`^ASA`','`(?<!^)KN`', '`(?<!^)(PH|PF)`', '`(?<!^)MAC`', '`(?<!^)SCH`','`(?<!^)ASA`' );   $convOut = array( 'NN', 'FF', 'MCC', 'SSS', 'AZA', 'NN', 'FF', 'MCC','SSS', 'AZA' );   $sIn = preg_replace( $convIn, $convOut, $sIn );   // suppression des H sauf CH ou SH   $sIn = preg_replace( '`(?<![CS])H`', '', $sIn );   // suppression des Y sauf précédés d'un A   $sIn = preg_replace( '`(?<!A)Y`', '', $sIn );   // on supprime les terminaisons A, T, D, S   $sIn = preg_replace( '`[ATDS]$`', '', $sIn );   // suppression de tous les A sauf en tête   $sIn = preg_replace( '`(?!^)A`', '', $sIn );   // on supprime les lettres répétitives   $sIn = preg_replace( '`(.)\1`', '$1', $sIn );   // on ne retient que 4 caractères ou on complète avec des blancs   return substr( $sIn . '    ', 0, 4);}?>

Although the standard soundex string is 4 characters long, and this is what's returned by the php function, some database programs return an arbitrary number of strings. MySQL, for instance.The MySQL documentation covers this, recommending that you may wish to use substring to output the standard 4 characters. Let's take 'Dostoyevski' as an example.select soundex("Dostoyevski")returns D2312select substring(soundex("Dostoyevski"), 1, 4);returns D231PHP will return the value as 'D231'So, to use the soundex function to generate a WHERE parameter in a MySQL SELECT statement, you might try this:$s = soundex('Dostoyevski');SELECT * FROM authors WHERE substring(soundex(lastname), 1 , 4) = "' . $s  . '"';Or, if you want to bypass the php function$result = mysql_query("select soundex('Dostoyevski')");$s = mysql_result($result, 0, 0);

I wrote this function a long time ago in CGI-perl and then translated (if you can call it that) into PHP.  A little clunky to say the least, but should handle true soundex specs 100%:// ---begin code---function MakeSoundEx($stringtomakesoundexof){    $temp_Name = $stringtomakesoundexof;    $SoundKey1 = "BPFV";    $SoundKey2 = "CSKGJQXZ";    $SoundKey3 = "DT";    $SoundKey4 = "L";    $SoundKey5 = "MN";    $SoundKey6 = "R";    $SoundKey7 = "AEHIOUWY";        $temp_Name = strtoupper($temp_Name);    $temp_Last = "";    $temp_Soundex = substr($temp_Name, 0, 1);    $n = 1;    for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey1); $i++)    {            if ($temp_Soundex == substr($SoundKey1, i - 1, 1))        {            $temp_Last = "1";            }    }    for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey2); $i++)    {            if ($temp_Soundex == substr($SoundKey2, i - 1, 1))        {            $temp_Last = "2";            }    }    for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey3); $i++)    {            if ($temp_Soundex == substr($SoundKey3, i - 1, 1))        {            $temp_Last = "3";            }    }    for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey4); $i++)    {            if ($temp_Soundex == substr($SoundKey4, i - 1, 1))        {            $temp_Last = "4";            }    }    for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey5); $i++)    {            if ($temp_Soundex == substr($SoundKey5, i - 1, 1))        {            $temp_Last = "5";            }    }    for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey6); $i++)    {            if ($temp_Soundex == substr($SoundKey6, i - 1, 1))        {            $temp_Last = "6";            }    }    for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey6); $i++)    {            if ($temp_Soundex == substr($SoundKey6, i - 1, 1))        {            $temp_Last = "";            }    }    for ($n = 1; $n < strlen($temp_Name); $n++)    {        if (strlen($temp_Soundex) < 4)        {            for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey1); $i++)            {                if (substr($temp_Name, $n - 1, 1) == substr($SoundKey1, $i - 1, 1) && $temp_Last != "1")                {                    $temp_Soundex = $temp_Soundex."1";                    $temp_Last = "1";                }            }            for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey2); $i++)            {                if (substr($temp_Name, $n - 1, 1) == substr($SoundKey2, $i - 1, 1) && $temp_Last != "2")                {                    $temp_Soundex = $temp_Soundex."2";                    $temp_Last = "2";                }            }            for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey3); $i++)            {                if (substr($temp_Name, $n - 1, 1) == substr($SoundKey3, $i - 1, 1) && $temp_Last != "3")                {                    $temp_Soundex = $temp_Soundex."3";                    $temp_Last = "3";                }            }            for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey4); $i++)            {                if (substr($temp_Name, $n - 1, 1) == substr($SoundKey4, $i - 1, 1) && $temp_Last != "4")                {                    $temp_Soundex = $temp_Soundex."4";                    $temp_Last = "4";                }            }            for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey5); $i++)            {                if (substr($temp_Name, $n - 1, 1) == substr($SoundKey5, $i - 1, 1) && $temp_Last != "5")                {                    $temp_Soundex = $temp_Soundex."5";                    $temp_Last = "5";                }            }            for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey6); $i++)            {                if (substr($temp_Name, $n - 1, 1) == substr($SoundKey6, $i - 1, 1) && $temp_Last != "6")                {                    $temp_Soundex = $temp_Soundex."6";                    $temp_Last = "6";                }            }            for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($SoundKey7); $i++)            {                if (substr($temp_Name, $n - 1, 1) == substr($SoundKey7, $i - 1, 1))                {                    $temp_Last = "";                }            }        }    }    while (strlen($temp_Soundex) < 4)    {        $temp_Soundex = $temp_Soundex."0";    }    return $temp_Soundex;}// --- end code---

A MUCH easier way to check for similarity between words and avoid the problems that come up with Klancy/Clancy would be to simply add any letter infront of the stringie:  OKlancy/OClancy

The soundex 'different letter in front' problem can be solved by using levenshtein() on the soundex codes. in my application, which is searching a database of album names for entries that match a particular user provided string, i do the following:1. Search the database for the exact name2. Search the database for entries where the name occurs anyway as a string3. Search the database for entries where any of the words in the name (if the user has typed in more than one word) is present, except for little words (and, the, of etc)4. Then, if all this fails, I go to plan b:- calculate the levenshtein distance (levenshtein()) between the user search term and each of the entries in the database as a percentage of the length of the user search term entered- calculate the levenshtein distance between the metphone codes of the user search term entered and each field in the database as a percentage of the length of the metaphone code of the user search term entered- calculate the levenshtein distance between the soundex codes of the user search term entered and each field in the database as a percentage of the length of the soundex code of the original user search term enteredif any of these percentages is less than 50 (means that two soundex codes with different first letters will be accepted!!) then the entry is accepted as a possible match.

I originally looked at soundex() because I wanted to compare how individual letters sounded. So, when pronouncing a string of generated characters it would be easy to to distinguish them from eachother.  (ie, TGDE is hard to distinguish, whereas RFQA is easier to understand). The goal was to generate IDs that could be easily understood with a high degree of accuracy over a radio of varying quality. I quickly figured out that soundex and metaphone wouldn't do this (they work for words), so I wrote the following to help out. The ID generation function iteratively calls chrSoundAlike() to compare each new character with the preceeding characters. I'd be interested in recieving any feedback on this. Thanks.<?phpfunction chrSoundAlike($char1, $char2, $opts = FALSE) {    $char1 = strtoupper($char1);    $char2 = strtoupper($char2);    $opts  = strtoupper($opts);    // Setup the sets of characters that sound alike.    // (Options: include numbers, include W, include both, or default is none of those.)    switch ($opts) {    case 'NUMBERS':        $sets = array(0 => array('A', 'J', 'K'),                      1 => array('B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'G', 'P', 'T', 'V', 'Z', '3'),                      2 => array('F', 'S', 'X'),                      3 => array('I', 'Y'),                      4 => array('M', 'N'),                      5 => array('Q', 'U', 'W'));        break;    case 'STRICT':        $sets = array(0 => array('A', 'J', 'K'),                      1 => array('B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'G', 'P', 'T', 'V', 'Z'),                      2 => array('F', 'S', 'X'),                      3 => array('I', 'Y'),                      4 => array('M', 'N'),                      5 => array('Q', 'U', 'W'));        break;            case 'BOTH':        $sets = array(0 => array('A', 'J', 'K'),                      1 => array('B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'G', 'P', 'T', 'V', 'Z', '3'),                      2 => array('F', 'S', 'X'),                      3 => array('I', 'Y'),                      4 => array('M', 'N'),                      5 => array('Q', 'U', 'W'));        break;    default:        $sets = array(0 => array('A', 'J', 'K'),                      1 => array('B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'G', 'P', 'T', 'V', 'Z'),                      2 => array('F', 'S', 'X'),                      3 => array('I', 'Y'),                      4 => array('M', 'N'),                      5 => array('Q', 'U'));        break;    }        // See if $char1 is in a set.    $matchset = array();    for ($i = 0; $i < count($sets); $i++) {        if (in_array($char1, $sets[$i])) {            $matchset = $sets[$i];        }    }    // IF char2 is in the same set as char1, or if char1 and char2 and the same, then return true.    if (in_array($char2, $matchset) OR $char1 == $char2) {        return TRUE;    } else {        return FALSE;    }}?>

eek... hosting got taken down on that server.. here's the code for the previousfunction cg_sylc($nos){  $nos = strtoupper($nos);  $syllables = 0;  $before = strlen($nos);  $nos = str_replace(array('AA','AE','AI','AO','AU',  'EA','EE','EI','EO','EU','IA','IE','II','IO',  'IU','OA','OE','OI','OO','OU','UA','UE',  'UI','UO','UU'), "", $nos);  $after = strlen($nos);  $diference = $before - $after;  if($before != $after) $syllables += $diference / 2;  if($nos[strlen($nos)-1] == "E") $syllables --;  if($nos[strlen($nos)-1] == "Y") $syllables ++;  $before = $after;  $nos = str_replace(array('A','E','I','O','U'),"",$nos);  $after = strlen($nos);  $syllables += ($before - $after);  return $syllables;}function cg_SoundEx($SExStr){  $syl = cg_sylc($SExStr);  $SExStr = strtoupper($SExStr);    for($i = 1, $ii = 2,print $SExStr[0]; ;$ii++){      if(($SExStr[$i] != $SExStr[$ii])){          $tsstr .= $SExStr[$ii];          $i ++;      }      if($SExStr[$ii] == false){        break;      }    }  $tsstr = str_replace(array('A', 'E', 'H', 'I', 'O', 'U', 'W', 'Y'), "", $tsstr);  $tsstr = str_replace(array('B', 'F', 'P', 'V'), "1", $tsstr);  $tsstr = str_replace(array('C', 'G', 'J', 'K', 'Q', 'S', 'X', 'Z', '?'), "2", $tsstr);  $tsstr = str_replace(array('D', 'T'), "3", $tsstr);  $tsstr = str_replace(array('L'), "4", $tsstr);  $tsstr = str_replace(array('M', 'N', '?'), "5", $tsstr);  $tsstr = str_replace(array('R'), "6", $tsstr);  while($iii < 3){    if($tsstr[$iii] != false){      $ttsstr .= $tsstr[$iii];    } else {      $ttsstr .= "0";    }    $iii ++;  }  $ttsstr .= $syl;  print $ttsstr;}

A MUCH easier way to do the above search would be to simply add any letter in front of the string and then compare them. ie. Klancy => LKlancy    Clancy => LClancy

Since the first letter is included in the phonetic representation in the output, it is worth pointing out that if you want a soundex key to work without the problems of klansy and clansy sounding different, take the substring from the first letter, as the first letter is the main constant of the word, and the numerical value is that of the phontic structure of the word.

fie at myrealbox dot com-regarding your soudex syllable request- i think counting vowel clusters in the word will result in an accurate count of syllables.  so no soudex feature is necessary, just count through the chars in the word, and everytime you run from vowel to consanant, increment the syllable count.using this logic, this sentence is categorized as follows.2 1 2 1 1 (3) (0) (4) (0) 2where (#) marks a word that is incorrectly categorized.  i'm sure usiong a little thinking one could figure out the logic in those cases that would result in an accurate count.  counting changes from vowel to consanant would yield-(1) 1 2 1 2 1 (4) 1 2taking the average and then cieling of the two types would fix most of the errors.

Rewritten, maybe -- but the algorithm has some obviousoptimisations which can be done, for example...        function text__soundex( $text ) {                $k = ' 123 12  22455 12623 1 2 2';                $nl = strlen( $tN = strtoupper( $text ) );                $p = trim( $k{ ord( $tS = $tN{0} ) - 65 } );                for( $n = 1; $n < $nl; ++$n )                        if( ( $l = trim( $k{ ord( $tN{ $n } ) - 65 } ) ) != $p )                                $tS .= ( $p = $l );                return substr( $tS . '000', 0, 4 );        }// Notes:// $k is the $key, essentially $SoundKey inverted// $tN is the uppercase of the text to be optimised// $tS is the partaully generated output // $l is the current letter, $p the previous// $n and $nl are iteration indicies// 65 is ord('A'), precalculated for speed// none ascii letters are not supported// watch the brackets, quite a mixture here(Code has suffered only basic tests, though it appears tomatch the output of PHP's soundex(), speed untested --though this should be /much/ faster than a4_perfect'srewrite due to the removal of most loops and compares.)C2005-09-13

a French soundex version ; could be used for other foreigns languages where soudex lacks. Perhaps, a class with each language specifics could be writen.http://www.php-help.net/sources-php/a.french.adapted.soundex.289.html

The answer to whether soundex works except for the first letter in klancy vs clancy is to always prefix words with the same letter.aklancy will match aclancybklancy will match bclancysoundex seems to only check the 1st 2 syllables.??ie:  spectacular matches spectaclejust a thought if you rely on soundex.k-

a workaround for the mysql/php differences in implementation of soundex is to do the soundex comparison entirely within mysql.for example:$sql = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE substring(soundex(field), 1, 4) =  substring(soundex('".$wordsearch."'), 1, 4)";

MySQL soundex (3.23.49) doesn't examine the first character at all to see whether it should be skipped. Therefore the Dutch name of The Hague, the country's government seat, 's-Gravenhage will give a soundex value of '261 in MySQL and S615 in PHP.