Accuracy of metaphone for word search in dictionary database in php

Question

I am going to implement did you mean feature for my application in php. Words from database is taken as dictionary. I think similar words can be find out more accurately using metaphone other than that of levenshtein, similer_text, soundex etc. Can anyone suggest about the accuracy of metaphone.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Metaphone is an approvement of Soundex. The built in php function use the original algorithm from 1990. The are to further improvement since 1990. The Double Metaphone, you can use the as PECL extension from http://pecl.php.net/package/doublemetaphone or download the class file from http://swoodbridge.com/DoubleMetaPhone/. (you can find a mysql function on http://www.atomodo.com/code/double-metaphone/metaphone.sql/view)

The next improvement Metaphone 3 can be bought on http://www.amorphics.com/buy_metaphone3.html