FAQ: PhoneSpell Technical Info

Technical Info:

How does the mnemonic search work?

How does the new phone number search work?

How does the word to number translator work?

What language is PhoneSpell written in?

Where did you get the words PhoneSpell uses?

How does the mnemonic search work?

To find all the interesting mnemonics for a given 7 digit phone number:

• A database of words, indexed by number, is consulted, and each word in the database which matches the sequence (from the beginning) and contains no extra digits/letters is selected. The database and search engine are specially optimized to make this search fast and efficient.
• The first digit of the sequence is removed and the above search is repeated on the new sequence. This repeats until all there are no more digits.
• Additionally, words of 4 or more letters which match the end of the number but have a single extra letter are also found.
• The result of the searches is a list of words to use to make the mnemonic. The words are put together in all possible combinations to generate an exhaustive list of mnemonics. That list is put through a proprietary filter which throws out mnemonics that are unteresting (based on the feedback PhoneSpell has received over the years).
• Finally, the mnemonics that pass through the filter are then sorted, formatted, and displayed.

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How does the new phone number search work?

To search for an interesting phone number:

• We take a sequence of 3 to 6 digits.
• A database of words, indexed by phone number, is consulted, and each 7 or 8 letter word in the database which matches the sequence (from the beginning) is selected. The database and search engine are specially optimized to make this search fast and efficient.
• Finally, the words are sorted, formatted, and displayed.

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How does the word to number translator work?

    Translating letters to numbers:    

 ABC => 2    DEF => 3    GHI => 4    JKL => 5 
 MNO => 6   PQRS => 7    TUV => 8   WXYZ => 9 

Letters are translated to numbers according to the table above, which is based on the AT&T telephone dial.

Note: The traditional phone dial does not include Q or Z. However, as modern usage of the Touch-Tone® style keypad for character entry has proliferated for such things as Bank ATMs, stock quote retrieval systems, and on-line corporate telephone directories, a de-facto standard has emerged to include Q and Z on 7 and 9, respectively. We follow that standard here.
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What language is PhoneSpell written in?

PhoneSpell is a system of multiple parts, some in C++, some in Perl, some in C, some in shtml, and some in shell scripts.
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Where did you get the words PhoneSpell uses?

At present, the word list PhoneSpell is using is a modified version of the standard (American) dictionary from ispell, plus popular first names as compiled by the US Social Security Administration and less than 100 other hand selected names and words.
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