Number::Spell looks like a good module for this sort of thing. But do you know of any modules that will handle ordinals? Number::Spell spells out cardinals.

(For the numerically impaired... cardinals count items (as in "one, two, three"), ordinals order items (as in "first, second, third"). You can tell cardinals by their red robes...)

UPDATE: Not that I'm complaining, but... I just noticed that this comment has a fairly decent reputation, higher than most of my comments, and equal to what I feel is a deserving comment posted on another thread Re: Search for dupe && append char if found.

This comment was a smart-assed, throwaway comment (or at least, I intended it to be). Why is it so highly rated?

I'm not trolling for votes, just curious.

If you've got the ordinal then the cardinal is relatively easy, just roll your own. something like:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my @examples = ("one", "two", "three", "nine", "twenty",
                "one hundred and three", "one thousand",
                "one thousand two hundred",
                "eighth thousand seven hundred and fifty seven");

for my $cardinal (@examples) {
    my $ordinal = ordinalise($cardinal);
    print "$ordinal\n";
};

sub ordinalise {
    my $str = shift;
    my @arr = split " ", $str;
    my $word = pop @arr;
    my %ord = ("one" => "first",       "two" => "second",
               "three" => "third",     "four" => "fourth",
               "five" => "fifth",      "six" => "sixth",
               "seven" => "seventh",   "eight" => "eighth",
               "nine" => "ninth",      "ten" => "tenth",
               "eleven" => "eleventh", "twelve" => "twelfth");
    {
    $word =~ s/ty$/tieth/ and next;
    $word = $ord{$word} and next if defined $ord{$word};
    $word .= "th";
    }
    push @arr, $word;
    return join(" ", @arr);
};
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Nuance

use Lingua::EN::Nums2Words;
print num2word_ordinal(1251), "\n";
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-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

Look at the categorization of those modules. How easy would they have been to find? Regardless of what the actual names for them were, it would have been ideal for them to have the following logical names to facilitate searching:
1. Number::Spell::Cardinal
2. Number::Spell::Ordinal

I am always keeping track of the difficulties in finding things in the Perl community and appreciate this post by merlyn, which adds yet another rung to my soapbox...

Of course, the bigger question is how best to solve this quandry, and I think the best thing is to simply keep observing the difficulties and eventually flesh out an answer as more detail develops.

This is a bigger problem that probably deserves either a full front page posting of it's own or ever it's own website.

At the very least a keyword table for every module to give the searcher a better chance of finding the right one would help. Maybe a keywords.txt added to every module tar that CPAN websites and scripts could parse out. Or a POD "=begin keyword" section.

What you mention is a more appealing and yet dangerous approach, actually listing modules under aliases in CPAN. It pollutes the namespace horribly but requires only a minor change in current behavior.

Of course the ideal fix would be to start a site where you could ask other experts what modules might best fit your needs... =P

--
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)

When I created Number::Spell it was only after searching CPAN and posting a description of my idea to comp.lang.perl.modules. Nowhere in this process did I discover Lingua::EN::Nums2Words or any module that even touched on the problem.

Though Number::Spell is fairly basic as as far as options go; I have been working on a number of features including:

• multilanguage support
• support for ordinal vs cardinal numbers
• support (in English anyway) for optional "and" in the spelling at the apropriate spot (i.e. "five hundred thriry two" vs. "five hundred and thirty two")

lhoward deserves many extra reputation points for realising that not all "english" speakers drop important conjunctions. More recognition to the forgotten "and".

And, the Perl module Speech::Festival will communicate with a Festival server.

This sounds like an excellent candidate for CUFP.   (IMHO)
    cheers,
    ybiC

use Win32::Sound;

Win32::Sound::Volume('100%');
Win32::Sound::Play("file.wav");
Win32::Sound::Stop();
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