Soundex modules available

Hey, developers, Monkeybread Software, which specializes in Mac utilities, has released a Soundex module for the REALbasic development environment. It contains three methods for the Soundex system.

Soundex is a system that was developed by the US government to aid in searching their vast databases of people, according to Matt Ronge, president of Monkeybread Software. It allows searching by how a name sounds rather than how it is spelled.

“For example, imagine a telephone operator listening to someone pronouncing their last name,” Ronge said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if they could find the person in their database by how it sounds so they don’t have to ask them to spell it out? The soundex system achieves this by converting a last name into a four character identification string. For instance, my last name is Ronge but after people here me pronounce it they think it is ‘Runge.’ Using the Soundex system, as far as the computer is concerned, ‘Ronge’ and ‘Runge’ are the same.”

The REALbasic Soundex module contains the following methods:

convertToSoundex: which converts the name to soundex so you can store it;

exactSoundexComparision: provide it with two last names and it will tell you if they sound the same;

soundexComparision: provide it with two last names and it will tell you on a scale of one to four how similar they are.

You can download the free Soundex modules (6,341 bytes) from the Monkeybread download site. REALbasic is the visual programming environment from REAL Software.