METAPHONE(3) 1 METAPHONE(3)
metaphone - Calculate the metaphone key of a string
SYNOPSIS
string metaphone (string $str, [int $phonemes])
DESCRIPTION
Calculates the metaphone key of $str.
Similar to soundex(3) metaphone creates the same key for similar sounding words. It's more accurate than soundex(3) as it knows the basic
rules of English pronunciation. The metaphone generated keys are of variable length.
Metaphone was developed by Lawrence Philips <lphilips at verity dot com>. It is described in ["Practical Algorithms for Programmers", Bin-
stock & Rex, Addison Wesley, 1995].
PARAMETERS
o $str
- The input string.
o $phonemes
- This parameter restricts the returned metaphone key to $phonemes characters in length. The default value of 0 means no restric-
tion.
RETURN VALUES
Returns the metaphone key as a string, or FALSE on failure.
EXAMPLES
Example #1
metaphone(3) basic example
<?php
var_dump(metaphone('programming'));
var_dump(metaphone('programmer'));
?>
The above example will output something similar to:
string(7) "PRKRMNK"
string(6) "PRKRMR"
Example #2
Using the $phonemes parameter
<?php
var_dump(metaphone('programming', 5));
var_dump(metaphone('programmer', 5));
?>
The above example will output something similar to:
string(5) "PRKRM"
string(5) "PRKRM"
PHP Documentation Group METAPHONE(3)
