public class

Metaphone

extends Object
implements StringEncoder
java.lang.Object
   ↳ org.apache.commons.codec.language.Metaphone

Class Overview

Encodes a string into a metaphone value.

Initial Java implementation by William B. Brogden. December, 1997. Permission given by wbrogden for code to be used anywhere.

Hanging on the Metaphone by Lawrence Philips in Computer Language of Dec. 1990, p 39.

Note, that this does not match the algorithm that ships with PHP, or the algorithm found in the Perl Text:Metaphone-1.96. They have had undocumented changes from the originally published algorithm. For more information, see CODEC-57.

Summary

Public Constructors
Metaphone()
Creates an instance of the Metaphone encoder
Public Methods
Object encode(Object pObject)
Encodes an Object using the metaphone algorithm.
String encode(String pString)
Encodes a String using the Metaphone algorithm.
int getMaxCodeLen()
Returns the maxCodeLen.
boolean isMetaphoneEqual(String str1, String str2)
Tests is the metaphones of two strings are identical.
String metaphone(String txt)
Find the metaphone value of a String.
void setMaxCodeLen(int maxCodeLen)
Sets the maxCodeLen.
[Expand]
Inherited Methods
From class java.lang.Object
From interface org.apache.commons.codec.Encoder
From interface org.apache.commons.codec.StringEncoder

Public Constructors

public Metaphone ()

Creates an instance of the Metaphone encoder

Public Methods

public Object encode (Object pObject)

Encodes an Object using the metaphone algorithm. This method is provided in order to satisfy the requirements of the Encoder interface, and will throw an EncoderException if the supplied object is not of type java.lang.String.

Parameters
pObject Object to encode
Returns
  • An object (or type java.lang.String) containing the metaphone code which corresponds to the String supplied.
Throws
EncoderException if the parameter supplied is not of type java.lang.String

public String encode (String pString)

Encodes a String using the Metaphone algorithm.

Parameters
pString String object to encode
Returns
  • The metaphone code corresponding to the String supplied

public int getMaxCodeLen ()

Returns the maxCodeLen.

Returns
  • int

public boolean isMetaphoneEqual (String str1, String str2)

Tests is the metaphones of two strings are identical.

Parameters
str1 First of two strings to compare
str2 Second of two strings to compare
Returns
  • true if the metaphones of these strings are identical, false otherwise.

public String metaphone (String txt)

Find the metaphone value of a String. This is similar to the soundex algorithm, but better at finding similar sounding words. All input is converted to upper case. Limitations: Input format is expected to be a single ASCII word with only characters in the A - Z range, no punctuation or numbers.

Parameters
txt String to find the metaphone code for
Returns
  • A metaphone code corresponding to the String supplied

public void setMaxCodeLen (int maxCodeLen)

Sets the maxCodeLen.

Parameters
maxCodeLen The maxCodeLen to set