[AccessD] Fuzzy Matching (Like Soundex) or other ideas?

Ryan W wrwehler at gmail.com
Fri Apr 21 19:26:46 CDT 2023


Does anyone have any fuzzy matching routines that would have fuzzy matching
logic based on a matching percentage or something else?

Example:

Client sends us a hand written chain of custody, they list something we
look at as:
"MW-14" so we enter it as MW-14

On a set of forms they provide later for us to use reporting purposes, they
called it MW14.

So now we have data that doesn't precisely match.  The usual fix is for us
to ask the client which one is right, and fix the incorrect one.  Sometimes
it's the hand written form (and then our database, because we relied on the
hand written form to start the work), sometimes it's the data entry forms
they provided (You figure they'd get this right....).

I'm trying to make it so when they send us the data to digest toward the
end of the job, I can pull that data in and it'll match MW-14 with MW14, or
vice versa.

While SoundEx works for MW-14 vs MW14, it also thinks.. .. as an example
that MW-104 matches as well. (or something similar as an example).

I'm not even sure if a percentage match would be enough since MW-14, MW14
and MW-104 are all a really tight grouping of "like" characters.  MW-104
would be unrelated to MW-14 or MW14... so erroneously matching it would
cause more grief than us just hand patching the IDs before we button up the
job.


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