Re: Bug in metaphone (contrib/fuzzystrmatch)

Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> Second argument to metaphone is suposed to set the limit on the
> number of characters to return, but it breaks on some phrases:
>
> usps=# select metaphone(a,3),metaphone(a,4),metaphone(a,20) from
> (select 'Hello world'::varchar AS a) a;
> HLW | HLWR | HLWRLT
>
> usps=# select metaphone(a,3),metaphone(a,4),metaphone(a,20) from
> (select 'A A COMEAUX MEMORIAL'::varchar AS a) a;
> AKM | AKMKS | AKMKSMMRL
>
> In every case I've found that does this, the 4th and 5th letters are
> always 'KS'.

Nice catch.

There was a bug in the original metaphone algorithm from CPAN. Patch
attached (while I was at it I updated my email address, changed the
copyright to PGDG, and removed an unnecessary palloc). Here's how it
looks now:

regression=# select metaphone(a,4) from (select 'A A COMEAUX
MEMORIAL'::varchar AS a) a;
metaphone
-----------
AKMK
(1 row)

regression=# select metaphone(a,5) from (select 'A A COMEAUX
MEMORIAL'::varchar AS a) a;
metaphone
-----------
AKMKS
(1 row)

Please apply.

Thanks,

Joe