Article 8558 of soc.roots:
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From: scott@ferrari.LABS.TEK.COM (Scott Huddleston)
Newsgroups: soc.roots
Subject: soundex from Unix
Message-ID: <3395@crl.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 22 Jan 92 02:08:18 GMT
References: <9201131930.AA00522@rcrisp.uark.edu> <1992Jan14.184836.15662@ssd.dl.nec.com> <1992Jan16.183434.27481@spectrum.CMC.COM>
Sender: news@crl.LABS.TEK.COM
Reply-To: scott@ferrari.LABS.TEK.COM (Scott Huddleston)
Organization: Computer Research Laboratory, Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton OR
Lines: 35

For Unix users, the following shell script will calculate soundex codes
from the shell.  Copy the gobblygook below the "cut here" line into a
file named "soundex" and make it executable (chmod +x soundex).  Then
you can issue "soundex" as a Unix command.  Just give it a list of names
you want the codes for.  E.g., "soundex Huddleston Manis Pfister" gives

Huddleston H342
Manis M520
Pfister P236

Thanks to Lar Poulson(?)'s perl example for inspiring me to write this.
I don't speak much perl, but I think Lar's example requires you to write
a perl program to use it.

-------------- cut here ---------------------------
#! /bin/sh
# calculate soundex codes for a list of arguments
for name in $*; do
init=`echo $name | sed 's/^\(.\).*/\1/' | tr a-z A-Z`
tail=`echo $name | tr A-Z a-z | sed '
s/[bvfp][bvfp]*/1/g
s/[cgjkqsxz][cgjkqsxz]*/2/g
s/[dt][dt]*/3/g
s/ll*/4/g
s/[mn][mn]*/5/g
s/rr*/6/g
s/^.\([a-z1-6]*\)/\1000/
s/[aehiouwy]//g
s/^\(...\)[0-6]*/\1/
'`
echo $name $init$tail
done
--
Scott Huddleston
scott@crl.labs.tek.com