We have /contrib/soundex and items to help here. 7.2 will have even
more of them.
>
> On Sunday, October 7, 2001, at 01:47 AM, Frank Joerdens wrote:
>
> > Does anyone know how to do a phonetic and/or synonym search (this would
> > be for the German language mostly)? What's the approach in theory?
>
> The first thing you need to do is track down an algorithm that converts
> a word into a code representing how the word sounds. This is language
> specific,
> and all the ones I know of are English specific or surname specific.
> These
> might do the job well enough in German, but you would need to test.
> Examples
> of the algorithms you are after are soundex (an implementation exists in
> the contrib
> directory of your postgresql source) and NYSIIS (I've got a C
> implementation for
> PostgreSQL if there is interest). Once you have reduced a word to its
> code, you
> can test if two words sound alike by simply comparing them
> ( nysiis('katie') == nysiis('city').
>
> Examples on how to use this might be simply to create the relevant
> function index on
> your table, if your value contains only one word:
>
> create index idx_blah on people (nysiis(surname))
>
> You can then just use "nysiis('smith') = nysiis(surname)" in your where
> clause of your SQL.
>
> If you have multiple words in your value, you need triggers to split the
> phrases into
> words and store them in another table. You then use this table to
> perform your phonetic
> searches.
>
> --
> Stuart Bishop <zen@shangri-la.dropbear.id.au>
>
>
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--
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