org.apache.commons.codec.language
Class Metaphone

java.lang.Object
  org.apache.commons.codec.language.Metaphone

All Implemented Interfaces:

Encoder, StringEncoder

public class Metaphone
extends Object
implements StringEncoder

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.

This class is conditionally thread-safe. The instance field maxCodeLen is mutable setMaxCodeLen(int) but is not volatile, and accesses are not synchronised. If an instance of the class is shared between threads, the caller needs to ensure that suitable synchronisation is used to ensure safe publication of the value between threads, and must not invoke setMaxCodeLen(int) after initial setup.

Version:

$Id: Metaphone.html 889935 2013-12-11 05:05:13Z ggregory $

Metaphone

public Metaphone()

Creates an instance of the Metaphone encoder

metaphone

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

encode

public Object encode(Object obj)
              throws EncoderException

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.

Specified by:

encode in interface Encoder

Parameters:

obj - 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

encode

public String encode(String str)

Encodes a String using the Metaphone algorithm.

Specified by:

encode in interface StringEncoder

Parameters:

str - String object to encode

Returns:

The metaphone code corresponding to the String supplied

isMetaphoneEqual

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.

getMaxCodeLen

public int getMaxCodeLen()

Returns the maxCodeLen.

Returns:

int

setMaxCodeLen

public void setMaxCodeLen(int maxCodeLen)

Sets the maxCodeLen.

Parameters:

maxCodeLen - The maxCodeLen to set