Does mySQL have a Soundex function? If I remember correctly, Devin has some functions that implement a Levenstein Distance algorithm which will identify potential misspellings of a word
Pete lcSQL Software <http://www.lcsql.com> Home of lcStackBrowser <http://www.lcsql.com/lcstackbrowser.html> and SQLiteAdmin <http://www.lcsql.com/sqliteadmin.html> On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 6:06 PM, Bob Sneidar <bobsnei...@iotecdigital.com>wrote: > Hi all. > > I'm trying to devise a way to implement a "near text search" when querying > a mySQL database. My problem is, I get spreadsheet forms filled out by hand > from our dispatcher, and he sometimes makes typos, just small ones, and I > need to ensure there are no virtual duplicate customer records in my > application. So I need to query the database in sic a way that I come up > with the nearest neighbor. I could do this easily in Foxpro, because they > provide an argument for it, but I've searched around and no one seems to be > able to produce a nearest neighbor search for text! You can do it for > numbers, just not text. > > So now I'm trying to devise a way to convert a string to a number in such > a way that the likelihood there could be a match would be extremely > unlikely. So far I've come up with this: > > function textToNum theString > put lower(theString) > put 1 into theSeed > repeat for each char theAscii in theString > put charToNum(theAscii) into theAsciiCode > add (theAsciiCode*theSeed) to theNum > add 1 to theSeed > end repeat > return theNum > end textToNum > > The idea is that each character position would be multiplied by a seed > value representing it's position in the string. However I can foresee that > it would be statistically possible to get pretty close and even get a match > for two completely different strings. I *could* use a seed value equal to > the number of lower case printable characters in the lower ascii table, but > that could produce HUGE numbers and I am afraid of overflows. > > Any thoughts? > > Bob > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your > subscription preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode > _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
