RE: Fuzzy search??

Precisely what I was thinking, it's more for a user search.  So, basically 
if they are looking for EAST BATTERY RD and it's listed as BATTERY RD 
EAST, I could in theory break down what they've typed in and do an sql 
based on (PROP LIKE %EAST%) AND (PROP LIKE %BATTERY%) AND (PROP LIKE %RD%) 
and that should return the BATTERY RD EAST.  Thanks, much appreciated.

Ron Power
Programmer
Information Services
City Of St. John's, NL
P.O. Box 908
St. John's, NL
A1C 5M2
709-576-8132
rpower@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.stjohns.ca/
___________________________________________________________________________
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. - 
Sir Winston Churchill




"Clapham, Paul" <pclapham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent by: java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
2006/05/31 02:35 PM
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Java Programming on and around the iSeries / AS400 
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RE: Fuzzy search??






Not in the standard Java API, no. There are probably products out there to 
do what you want, which is actually more complicated than what you say 
because you could have "E" or "E." instead of "East" for example.

If the addresses in your file aren't standardized then I think you're 
addressing the problem at the wrong end. You need to standardize them. 
This is called "data cleansing" by businesses who have to have correct 
addresses. Used to be that you'd have to pay a lot of money to the Post 
Office to get their address data, but now there are free web services like 
http://geocoder.ca that can (among other things) standardize your address 
information.

On the other hand if your addresses are in good shape and you're trying to 
build an inquiry given partial information, then just pick one of the 
words (e.g. "Battery" and not e.g. "East") and do an SQL query with the 
keyword "CONTAINS" or "LIKE". This is going to be human-driven anyway, so 
then let the user pick which of the names containing "Battery" they really 
wanted.

Regards
PC2 

-----Original Message-----
From: java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of RPower@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: May 31, 2006 09:44
To: Java Programming on and around the iSeries / AS400
Subject: Fuzzy search??

Wondering if anyone out there has something I need.  Basically, if I have 
a street name "Middle East Battery Rd" and I want to find it in a file, 
but in the file it could be "East Middle Battery Rd" or "Battery Rd, 
Middle East" etc. is there a function that will match all the words from 
one phrase to the words of another?

Ron Power
Programmer
Information Services
City Of St. John's, NL
P.O. Box 908
St. John's, NL
A1C 5M2
709-576-8132
rpower@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.stjohns.ca/
___________________________________________________________________________
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. - 
Sir Winston Churchill





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