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NYSIIS¤

This transformer plugin implements the NYSIIS phonetic algorithm for encoding names.

The acronym NYSIIS stands for New York State Identification and Intelligence System. This so-called phonetic code is an improvement upon the Soundex algorithm.

Description¤

The NYSIIS Phonetic Code is more involved than the comparatively simple mapping of the Soundex algorithm. The full procedure of the algorithm is described in the corresponding Wikipedia page.

Plain NYSIIS¤

The (plain) NYSIIS algorithm was originally meant for encoding names. Originally, the maximum number of characters in the output was limited to six, but modern implementations of this algorithm —and improvements thereupon— don’t necessarily contain this limitation. This plugin doesn’t.

Modified NYSIIS¤

The Modified NYSIIS is an improvement of the NYSIIS algorithm. Its working is illustrated, step by step, in http://www.dropby.com/NYSIIS.html.

Examples¤

We can get an idea of the output of the NYSIIS algorithm using an online version of it such as the already mentioned http://www.dropby.com/NYSIIS.html. It contains both the (plain) NYSIIS and the modified NYSIIS algorithms.

As a comparison of the two versions of NYSIIS, we give a few examples:

  • macintosh is encoded as mcant by the NSIIS, and as mcantas by the refined or modified NYSIIS.
  • phillipson leads to ffalapsan in NSIIS and falapsan in its refined version.
  • phone leads to ffan in NSIIS and fan in its refined version.
  • eccenca is converted to ecanc in both versions of NSIIS.

Parameter¤

Refined¤

No description

  • ID: refined
  • Datatype: boolean
  • Default Value: true

Advanced Parameter¤

None

  • soundex — The NYSIIS plugin encodes a name into a phonetic key, but it is not the same kind of key as Soundex. The Soundex plugin produces a fixed, coarse code, while NYSIIS keeps more structure so fewer distinct names collapse into the same bucket.
  • metaphone — The Metaphone plugin follows its own phonetic encoding path and returns a key that lives in a different rule space than NYSIIS. Switching between Metaphone and the NYSIIS plugin changes which spellings end up identical after encoding, not just how the encoded strings look.

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