Fuzzy matching by using SimMetrics library - fuzzy-search

Question

I need some help here. How would, I create a simple SQL statement to select Names #userEnteredName with these functions. In other words, I want to get customer names from the customer table where the user typed in smyth and get back smith, smitty, etc....
... or with one word How do I use the bellow created functions to query a database table.
Thank you in advance for you help.
<code>declare #userEnteredLastName varchar(200);
declare #userEnteredFirstName varchar(200);
set #userEnteredLastName='smyth';
set #userEnteredFirstName='Jon';
SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE JaroWinkler(CustomerLastName, #userEnteredLastName) > .75 AND JaroWinkler(CustomerFirstName, #userEnteredFirstName) > .75</code>
I using the SimMetrics library for it located at SimMetrics

Answer 1

If you are using SQL Server 2008 and above (should work on 2005, I have not tested it)...
Try using a Table Value Function (TVF) in the form of CROSS APPLY to make this work.
You can wrap the scalar function in a TVF to accomplish this, like so:
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.Jarowinklertvf(#firstword NVARCHAR(255),
#secondword NVARCHAR(255))
returns TABLE
AS
RETURN
(SELECT dbo.Jarowinkler(#firstword, #secondword) Score,
'JaroWinkler' Metric)
Then call the function like so:
DECLARE #userEnteredLastName VARCHAR(200);
DECLARE #userEnteredFirstName VARCHAR(200);
SET #userEnteredLastName='smyth';
SET #userEnteredFirstName='Jon';
SELECT l.score LastNameScore,
f.score FirstNameScore,
i.*
FROM customer i
CROSS apply dbo.Jarowinklertvf(i.customerlastname, #userEnteredLastName)
l
CROSS apply dbo.Jarowinklertvf(i.customerfirstname, #userEnteredFirstName
) f
WHERE l.score > .75
AND f.score > .75
ORDER BY 1 DESC
I hope this helps.