DIFFERENCE (Transact-SQL)
Applies to:
SQL Server
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Managed Instance
Azure Synapse Analytics
Analytics Platform System (PDW)
SQL analytics endpoint in Microsoft Fabric
Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric
This function returns an integer value measuring the difference between the SOUNDEX() values of two different character expressions.
Transact-SQL syntax conventions
DIFFERENCE ( character_expression , character_expression )
An alphanumeric expression of character data. character_expression can be a constant, variable, or column.
int
DIFFERENCE
compares two different SOUNDEX
values, and returns an integer value. This value measures the degree that the SOUNDEX
values match, on a scale of 0
to 4
. A value of 0
indicates weak or no similarity between the SOUNDEX
values; 4
indicates strongly similar, or even identically matching, SOUNDEX
values.
DIFFERENCE
and SOUNDEX
have collation sensitivity.
The first part of this example compares the SOUNDEX
values of two very similar strings. For a Latin1_General
collation, DIFFERENCE
returns a value of 4
. The second part of the example compares the SOUNDEX
values for two very different strings, and for a Latin1_General
collation, DIFFERENCE
returns a value of 0
.
SELECT SOUNDEX('Green'),
SOUNDEX('Greene'),
DIFFERENCE('Green', 'Greene');
GO
Here's the result set.
----- ----- -----------
G650 G650 4
SELECT SOUNDEX('Blotchet-Halls'),
SOUNDEX('Greene'),
DIFFERENCE('Blotchet-Halls', 'Greene');
GO
Here's the result set.
----- ----- -----------
B432 G650 0