SOUNDEX function

The SOUNDEX function returns the American Soundex value consisting of the first letter followed by a 3–digit encoding of the sounds that represent the English pronunciation of the string that you specify.

Syntax

SOUNDEX(string)

Arguments

string

You specify a CHAR or VARCHAR string that you want to convert to an American Soundex code value.

Return type

The SOUNDEX function returns a VARCHAR(4) string consisting of a capital letter followed by a three–digit encoding of the sounds that represent the English pronunciation.

Usage notes

The SOUNDEX function converts only English alphabetical lowercase and uppercase ASCII characters, including a–z and A–Z. SOUNDEX ignores other characters. SOUNDEX returns a single Soundex value for a string of multiple words separated by spaces.

select soundex('AWS Amazon');

 soundex
---------
 A252

SOUNDEX returns an empty string if the input string doesn't contain any English letters.

select soundex('+-*/%');

  soundex
---------

Example

The following example returns the Soundex A525 for the word Amazon.

select soundex('Amazon');

 soundex
---------
 A525