Fuzzy match in C#

Question

Does C# has its own library for Fuzzy match(Fuzzy Search) or a method that can be used directly from .net libraries?

Similar / duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/53480/fuzzy-text-sentences-titles-matching-in-c AND http://stackoverflow.com/questions/83777/are-there-any-fuzzy-search-or-string-similarity-functions-libraries-written-for-c — jjxtra, Feb 19 '10 at 01:26
Also see this (later) question: https://stackoverflow.com/q/19123506/4858 — skst, Apr 08 '20 at 04:21

score 11 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 23 '13 at 07:54

11

Not a library, but check out the Levenshtein edit distance algorithm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance

It's well known and established and excellent for fuzzy matching text. There are many other examples out there besides the link i provided in case it doesn't suit you: Google Search

edited Apr 23 '13 at 07:54

Tom Ferguson

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answered Feb 18 '10 at 19:15

Paul Sasik

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I know Levenshtein edit distance algorithm and I already used it but I'm wondering if .net has one. – Eyla Feb 18 '10 at 19:32
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Not built in. Not as of 3.5 anyway. Though it's fairly trivial to implement as is. Why not just reuse what you already know? Btw. You can add it as an extension method and make it feel like a .Net library function. ;-) – Paul Sasik Feb 18 '10 at 20:06

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 18 '10 at 19:18

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Current versions don't have it built in.

I have seen and used Soundex (a method for fuzzy matching) operations for this in the past. Here's an article on how to implement Soundex in .Net.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/Soundex.aspx

answered Feb 18 '10 at 19:18

David

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Soundex gives pretty awful results compared to Levenshtein. – Ian Mercer Feb 19 '10 at 01:29
Thanks. I've bookmarked this because I want to try the Levenshtein next time I have a need for such logic. – David Feb 19 '10 at 02:46

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 23 '13 at 07:52

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If its for a kindof "did you mean" function you could have a look at Lorenzo Stoakes C# implementation of Peter Norvig's Spelling Corrector.

If you need more elaborate search features like ranking and such, you could also take at look at Lucene.Net

edited Apr 23 '13 at 07:52

Tom Ferguson

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answered Feb 18 '10 at 19:24

Luhmann

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Fuzzy match in C#

3 Answers3