To throw in an additional couple o' cents.... Joe Celko's 'SQL for Smarties' (Morgan Kaufman, 1995) (and well worth buying anyway) contains a couple of algorithms for producing better Soundex codings. He also attributes the original Soundex algorithm to Margaret O'Dell and Robert C. Russel, who developed it in 1918, originally for clerical application.

Improved algorithms by Gus Baird (Georgia Tech); and Metaphone, by Lawrence Philips and Terry Smithwick (full Pascal code) are presented. ---------------------------------------- Karsten Self / kmself@ix.netcom.com

What part of gestalt don't you understand?