(classic problem)
Definition: Code a string based on how it is pronounced.
Specialization (... is a kind of me.)
double metaphone, Jaro-Winkler, Caverphone, NYSIIS, soundex.
See also string matching with errors.
Note: Because spelling variants of names are common in English, algorithms have been developed to code names based on how they sound. Searching and matching is done by converting a name to some phonetic coding, and comparing codings. If I type "Hansen" into my electronic telephone book, it is useful for it to offer "Hanson" as a possible match.
Levenshtein distance and other measures or algorithms allowing for spelling errors usually have sophisticated matching routines, rather than preprocessing the names.
Author: PEB
If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul Black.
Entry modified 17 December 2004.
HTML page formatted Mon Feb 2 13:10:40 2015.
Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "phonetic coding", in
Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Vreda Pieterse and Paul E. Black, eds. 17 December 2004. (accessed TODAY)
Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/phoneticCoding.html