Convert accented characters to standard characters

[navee]

Hi, I need to substitute standard characters for accented characters (French,
German, Spanish etc) before doing the comparision with the database field. for
example if the letter 'o' has an umbaut on it, I have to convert it to an 'o'
without an umlaut. How can I achieve this? I appreciate your help. Thanks.

[PaulH]

use the replaceNoCase()function. though what happens if your database contains those chars?

[navee]

Hi, Here is what I am trying to do. Convert accented characters to their
un-accented equivalents both in the database ?search? field, and in the web
page construcing the search query. In this way, it doesn?t matter whether the
database contains accented characters or not, or whether the user?s search
terms include accented caracters or not , all the matching is done against
un-accented equivalents.

[navee]

Thanks for your reply. My database field also contains these characters. What I
have to do is to retrieve the database field value into a variable and convert
accented characters( German, Spanish etc character set) to standard characters
and comapre it with what I have inputted through the text box. Do I have to use
replaceNoCase() function for this? Please let me know really I am stuck here.
Thanks again.

[PaulH]

open up your char map s/w & start going thru the accented chars. make sure you
have the char set set to "unicode" (especially if you're using mx). then just
add to the code below. i'm not that hot w/regex so you could probably make this
better.

newText=reReplaceNoCase(orgText,"?|?|?|?|?|?","a","ALL");
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?|?|?|?","e","ALL");
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?|?|?|?","i","ALL");
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?","n","ALL");
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?|?|?|?|?","o","ALL");
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?|?|?|?","u","ALL");
.
.
.
etc.......

[navee]

Hi, Thank you very much for your help. I think it would solve my problem. Our
database field contains the name with accented characters. How would I replace
this field to match the search query? For example my database field has 'C?t?'
and my search query is looking for 'Cote'. Is it going to return any value? My
search query looks like this. 'select * from table where fname like
'%newText%'. I appreciate your help. Thanks.

[PaulH]

maybe something like this:

<cfscript>
function deAccent(orgText) {
var newText=reReplaceNoCase(arguments.orgText,"?|?|?|?|?|?","a","ALL");

newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?|?|?|?","e","ALL");
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?|?|?|?","i","ALL");
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?","n","ALL");
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?|?|?|?|?","o","ALL");
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,"?|?|?|?","u","ALL");

// don't forget the other chars
return newText;
}
</cfscript>

<cfquery name="search" datasource="someDSN">
SELECT *
FROM someTable
WHERE fname LIKE '%#deAccent(form.serachText)#%'.
</cfquery>

[navee]

Hi, Thanks for your code. My database field contains the name like 'C?te' and I
inputted 'Cote' .It didn't return anything. It didn't match with database field
because accented character '?' ASCII value is different from normal 'o'. Do
you have any ideas how to comapare this text? Thanks.

[PaulH]

that was exactly the first thing i mentioned to you. you said you had that handled.

so what exactly is the issue?

[navee]

Sorry. You have already mentioned the database side. I am planning to modify
the search criteria to another field in my database. So I think it would solve
my problem. Thank you for all your help. Still your solution is a great help
for my task. I am using SQL server and Coldfusion 4.0. Thanks.

[navee]

Hi, I have the name like 'St?o'. I called the function to replace the accented
character. If I use this expression it's not replacing the character.
newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,'?,?,?,?,?','a','ALL'); But If I use single
character expression like this it's working. What's the problem with above
expression? newText=reReplaceNoCase(newText,'?','a','ALL'); Thank you very
much.

[PaulH]

re-read my code. you're using "," instead of "|".