Telephone Lookup
July 23, 2013
In the early days of Unix, Mike Lesk wrote a directory-assistance program that allowed users to input a name using the numeric keypad on a telephone and get a telephone number in return. The program worked by “signing” each name with its telephonic equivalent, then storing the signatures in a database. This scheme makes collisions possible, but in practice collisions are rare, and when they do happen the user is prompted for additional information.
Your task is to write a program that takes a name and returns a telephone number; a database is provided on the next page. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.
Programming Praxis 