Phone Number Pattern Match Normalizer
The phone number pattern match normalizer uses complex strings (patterns) with ranges to represent a set of one or more phone numbers. It then compares a phone number value in the network message to each pattern specified as a normalizer parameter. If the phone number value matches one of the specified number patterns, the index associated with that value is used. The phone number pattern match normalizer can match strings that contain more than 15 digits, or that include the following characters: #, *, a, b, c, A, B, C, D, or E.
Patterns enable you to reduce the number of different
match parameters you need to define for phone numbers. For example, you can use an
asterisk wildcard at the end of a series of digits to create a multi-digit match for any
remaining unspecified numbers. This creates a prefix match normalizer. For example,
prefix 123* matches numbers 123, 1234, 1235, 12399999, and more. This allows you to
create a small subset of patterns that collapse many thousands of phone numbers to make
the normalizer more manageable.
Note: Because an asterisk is also used as a wild card in
pattern matching strings, if the string to match contains an asterisk, it must be
escaped as follows: \*.
For more information about how to define phone number patterns, see the discussion about specifying phone number patterns.