PHONETIC: phonetic encoding subroutine

Description

A program subroutine that converts text information (up to sixteen characters) to a phonetic equivalent. Used to access name information where the exact spelling is not known.

Categories

Program Development

Related files

PHONETIC: Encoding subroutine. Must be called from a program or procedure with information to be encoded passed.

PHONTEST: COBOL source file that tests the PHONALL entry point for the PHONETIC subroutine.

TESTPHON: Test program demonstrating PHONETIC encoding process. COBOL source also available.

User Instructions

Program subroutine; cannot be run interactively. (For test purposes see demonstration programs PHONTEST and TESTPHON.)

Mh3>Programmer Instructions Accepts three arguments, returning a four-character conversion of the text string passed to it. This encoded value represents the sounds of the text, and typically includes non-ASCII elements.

The PHONETIC subroutine must be linked to a program through the Wang LINKER. The subroutine has two entry points: PHONETIC, which does not encode the first letter of the character string, and PHONALL, which encodes all elements. The method of using each is described in the example below.

The subroutine requires the following information:

  Input    PIC X(?)        Text to be encoded.  A maximum of
                           16 characters will be encoded.
                           Length set by the optional length
                           argument (next).

  Length   INTEGER         Optional; may be omitted.
                           Sets the length of the input
                           text.  Defaults to 16.

  Output   PIC X(04)       Encoded value of text string
                           returned by PHONETIC.

There is no return code from the subroutine.

Example of use

From a COBOL program:

  CALL "PHONETIC"   USING LAST-NAME
                          LAST-NAME-LENGTH
                          PHONETIC-CODE.

If you wish to use the PHONALL encoding, the code would look like this:

  CALL "PHONALL"    USING LAST-NAME
                          LAST-NAME-LENGTH
                          PHONETIC-CODE.

Note that the PHONETIC version always preserves the value of the first letter, while PHONALL encodes all elements.

Comments

Useful for some types of name access where the spelling is not known.