The Soundex Function in SQL Helps You Find Similar Words!

Let's talk about the soundex function in SQL. Have you ever wanted to compare strings based upon how they sound or how their pronunciation goes rather than doing spelling? The soundex function in SQL is a very good tool for achieving the ability to get the sounds of words and bring those together. Let's take a look at the soundex function, how it works, and also give you some examples so you can see it in action.

Get that sound

The soundex function is used to get phonetic sounds of strain or word in general; strings in SQL are typically words. This then allows you to get different strings and then compare them with ones that are similar or have similar pronunciations. Obviously, this is really useful for identifying names and things that sound alike.

Let’s say you want to find every name that sounds like "gentlemen." Well, the soundex function in SQL could help you do this.

-- Example 1: Finding Names That Sound Like "Gentlemen"
SELECT full_name
FROM names
WHERE SOUNDEX(full_name) = SOUNDEX(’gentlemen’);

It actually uses the soundex phonetic algorithm to generate an output.

Of Note

One thing of note is that it's not very good with surnames, and the reason is those are kind of shorter, such as "Mr." or "miss," for example, because they're just so short. The longer the word, the better you're gonna get when it comes to the soundex function, so just be aware of how this works.

Example

Now, let's get into some practical examples of how the soundex function works and real SQL code. For example, let's take a look at names and how you can find names in a column using soundex.

Names Similar to "John Smith"
SELECT full_name
FROM names
WHERE SOUNDEX(full_name) = SOUNDEX('John Smith');

Here's some code that shows you how it works. You go in there and you select the full name from a table called names, where soundex is full name, and then you can look it up with equals soundex John Smith, for example; this will then pull anything that sounds like John Smith, no matter the spelling. We can obviously see the example of this being very important for finding names that may not be easy to find.

This is a reason is because of similar phonetic representations. This little trick in SQL can change the game when you need to find something that's similar or that you know has a lot of spelling errors, such as input data, the soundex function can come to play to help you find those words that are similarly spelled, which can have advantages in a lot of different situations. It's a very powerful tool for comparing strings based upon how they sound or how someone would speak them.

Not Stuck

You're not just stuck to spelling; for instance, you can have many different spellings of a word, names are a great example because names are not often spelled the same, and you sometimes want to put those together. You will then be able to enhance your data capabilities by using this functionality within your SQL queries.

Experiment

Make sure you experiment with this to see how it works and make sure the results are what you expect. Try how different strings or words come together with the soundex function. This will allow you to find data that many will not be able to find just by using this function in SQL. So go out there and do some amazing things with the soundex function.