Use SOUNDEX() word by word on SQL Server

Question

Here is my problem. For example I have a table Products that contains a field, Name:

Products
ID | Name | ..
1  | \"USB Key 10Go\"
2  | \"I         


        

Answer 1

Rather than use Soundex you might be better off computing the Levenshtein distance between the two strings. See the Wikipedia article on Levenshtein distance.

There's a TSQL implementation of the Levenshtein distance algorithm here.

Share and enjoy.

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EDIT 03-May-2012

Since writing my original response I've learned that Oracle includes the Levenshtein distance and several other "string similarity" functions in the UTL_MATCH package, which I believe is a standard part of the database. Documentation here. Perhaps not directly related to the original post (which was for SQL Server) but perhaps useful as many shops use multiple databases.