Re: General guidance if there is an in dadabase solution or should stay as excel vba solution.

Thanks you that is the kind of suggestion I was looking for - I will look
into plpgsql.

Yes, there are several optimizations in it - though due to the actual data
the first few characters cannot be tested. Some of the actual optimizations
are only to reach out to the surrounding 100 rows and to skip numbers in the
characters.

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 10:17 AM, David Johnston <polobo(at)yahoo(dot)com> wrote:

> Look at this module for the actual comparison algorithms (found in Appendix
> F)****
>
> ** **
>
> “fuzzystrmatch”****
>
> ** **
>
> Performance would be my only concern but you have that issue either way.
> With “plpgsql” you can do most things in the database you could do in VBA.
> Whether you want to bog the DB down with a processor intensive process like
> this is another question to consider.****
>
> ** **
>
> I am hoping you are putting in limits such as requiring that the first
> character (or even first partial word) are equal before even checking for an
> off-by-one error. With the “Levenshtein” algorithm you’d be looking for a
> value of “1” to match your current behavior.****
>
> ** **
>
> In short, what you are doing (given your specification below) in VBA is
> also doable in PostgreSQL.****
>
> ** **
>
> David J.****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org [mailto:
> pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] *On Behalf Of *Henry Drexler
> *Sent:* Monday, September 19, 2011 9:10 AM
> *To:* pgsql-general
> *Subject:* [GENERAL] General guidance if there is an in dadabase solution
> or should stay as excel vba solution.****
>
> ** **
>
> I have no problem doing this in excel vba, though as the list grows larger
> obviously excel has row limits.****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> What is being done:****
>
> There is a column of data imported into the db - they are just
> text strings, there are about 80,000 rows of them. The goal is to do a
> single character elimination to find matches.****
>
> ** **
>
> so for instance the data is a bunch of rows of this:****
>
> ** **
>
> hello there****
>
> what is your name****
>
> happy birthday****
>
> we are winner****
>
> we are winners****
>
> we like the sky****
>
> task to do****
>
> tasks to do****
>
> ** **
>
> so for the above in excel I created a macro that will remove one character
> and compare and do this for each character of each text string.****
>
> ** **
>
> The final product:****
>
> ** **
>
> hello there****
>
> what is your name****
>
> happy birthday****
>
> we are winner we are winners****
>
> we are winners we are winner****
>
> we like the sky****
>
> task to do tasks to do****
>
> tasks to do task to do****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> so you can see that it found the matches with being one character off.****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Is this something best done outside of the db and in excel as I am doing or
> is it possible to do it in db?****
>
> ** **
>
> Note I am not looking for someone to give a whole solution - just if they
> know it can be done let me know the direction so I can research it and
> figure it out.****
>
> ** **
>
> Any advice is welcome.****
>
> ** **
>