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Cognigy.AI helps you clean up user input (text or voice) with built-in functions. For example, if a user says alpha tango hotel double seven three nine minus L for London and C for Canada, it can automatically be converted to ath 7739 - lc. These Text Cleaner functions support the English (en) and German (de) locales and are available in: To learn more about the benefits of using Text Cleaner functions and how they work, watch this video:

Functions

Function NameDescription
cleanDisallowedSymbolsRemoves all symbols that are not explicitly allowed. All letters and numbers are allowed by default, and additional allowed symbols can be set.
resolveSpelledOutNumbersReplaces all number words with their numerical representation. For example, “five and three hundred nineteen” > “5 319”.
resolvePhoneticAlphabetDetects and replaces all words that are part of the phonetic alphabet. For example, “alpha tango lima” > “a t l”.
replaceSpecialWords (Deprecated)Replaces specifically set words with their replacements. For example, “lufthansa” > “lh”.

This function has been deprecated since v4.58. Use the replaceSpecialPhrases function instead.
replaceSpecialPhrasesReplaces specific words or phrases with replacements. For example, “Conversational AI” is changed to “CAI”, “New York” to “NY”, and “lufthansa” to “lh”.
resolveSpelledOutAlphabetResolves phrases like “a for anton b as in bertram” to “a b”.
resolvePhoneticCountersResolves strings like “3 times 2” to “222” or “double 4” to “44”. Learn more about special rules in the Rules for resolvePhoneticCounters section.
contractSingleCharactersJoins all single characters standing alone into a full string. For example, “my name is c o g n i g y” > “my name is cognigy”.
contractNumberGroupsJoins all numbers standing next to each other. For example, “his number is 333 43 22 44” > “his number is 333432244”.
trimResultTrims the start and end of the string and replaces all double (or more) spaces with single spaces.

Rules for resolvePhoneticCounters

This function is designed to convert phrases like “3 times 2” into their numeric representation, such as “3 times 2” to “222” or “double 4” to “44.” The function handles sentences that include both a multiplier (for example, “3 times” or “double”) and a multiplicand (for example, “2” or “4”). The multiplicand can be either a number or a character. Some examples can be ambiguous. For instance, consider the phrase “double ap 3 4”, which could be interpreted as either “aap34” or “apap34.” To avoid this ambiguity, Cognigy defined the following rules for multiplicand types:
Multiplicand typeRuleExample
Number2 times 3, 2 times 16
Multiplicand is a number less than 13The multiplicand is repeated itself.”2 times 3” will return “33”
“2 times 11” will return “1111”
Multiplicand is a number greater than or equal to 13Only the first digit is repeated.

The first digit is given priority due to the more common usage of phrases like “3 times 4” or “3 times 12,” compared to “3 times 25”.
“2 times 16” will return “116”
Character2 times alpha, 2 times ox
Multiplicand is a phonetic characterIt is resolved, and the character is repeated.”2 times alpha” will return “aa”
Multiplicand has more than one character and is not a phonetic characterOnly the first character is repeated.

Cognigy assumes that the speech-to-text (STT) system transcribed the user input incorrectly and that the user intended to say another.
”2 times ox” will return “oox”
(we assume that the user intended to say “2 times o, x”)
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