You could try one of the /sounds like/ type of modules from CPAN. Text::Metaphone and Text::Soundex are two that I have used. Both have limitations. It really depends on what you are willing to consider a "close match". Do you want 'Don Banks' to be a close match for 'Dawn Binx'? You may get odd results.

Alternately, you will need to better define what constitutes a "close match". Is it something that a human would recognize, but is hard to define in programmatic ways? Off-by-one type matches you may be able to program, but it could be error-prone and expensive (time intensive to run).

Any additional info you can supply here would help us better guage what you are trying to accomplish.

Ivan Heffner
Sr. Software Engineer, DAS Lead
WhitePages.com, Inc.

In reply to Re: Read a column; Compare strings for close (not exact) matches by Codon
in thread Read a column; Compare strings for close (not exact) matches by eyidearie

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