DM: Clustering and categorical attributes

[Carol Romanowski]

Hello-

I have a question about non-numeric data - what are good algorithms to
use when doing cluster analysis with attributes that have many
categories?  For instance, I have a dataset in which several fields 
are
alpha-numeric codes, and there are at least 1000 possible codes.

I have read of a method that is based on k-means clustering.  Are 
there
others?

Thanks

Carol