DIFFERENCE()

DIFFERENCE returns an integer value measuring the difference between the SOUNDEX values of two different character expressions.

Signature

DIFFERENCE ( character_expression , character_expression )

Parameters

  • character_expression — An alphanumeric expression of character data. *character_expression* can be a constant, variable, or column.

Examples

SELECT DIFFERENCE('Smith', 'Smyth') AS similarity;
similarity
-----------
          4

Run against SQL Server 16.0.4265.3 on 2026-09-13. This is the output we got, not the documentation’s.

Available on

  • SQL Server 2017 and later
  • Azure SQL Database
  • Azure SQL Managed Instance
  • Azure Synapse Analytics
  • Analytics Platform System (PDW)
  • Microsoft Fabric warehouse
  • Fabric SQL database

Signature and description adapted from the Microsoft SQL documentation, used under the CC BY 4.0. SQL Server and Azure are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. This page is not affiliated with Microsoft.