Hi there,

  we have a table which in some fields contains European place names.  Some
of these names have accented characters in them.  Now we need our users to
be able to accurately locate these places - and they sure as hell aren't
going to put the accents in the right places when they enter a search
string!  We can't strip the accents out as it is important the place is
represented correctly.

So how do I get around this one?  Is there any way of telling the search
routines (paradox tables, or SQL) to ignore certain characters, or to
"replace" them with equivalents?

Or do I have to get more draconian - make another search field with no
accents in them? Or make a calculated field which strips accents on the fly?
Or write my own search algorithm?

This is related to another problem I have - how do I offer the facility of a
soundex search on a database field?  I take it there's no way of hooking  my
soundex algorithm to the existing database search routines?

Thanks for any replies in advance,

Regards,

Matt P
Domesday Project.

On Sat, 18 Sep 1999 20:10:53 +0100, "Matt P" <matt.pal...@{*word*269}.net>
wrote:

I think you have to resort to an additional search field, since both
SQL Upper() and case-insensitive indexes correctly handle accentuated
characters.

HTH,

Jan