in reply to Algorythym for searching closest neighbor

Well, if you're using a DB (hopefully SQL, at least for this code) you could use a LIKE statement in there.

SELECT
    zdb.zip
FROM
    zipdb zdb
WHERE
    zdb.zip LIKE '%@query%'

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I belive this may help. The %'s round the @query say match this in the beginning, middle, or end. I could be wrong, so look it up. (sybase is what I use)
Just my .02

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Re: Re: Algorythm for searching closest neighbor
by physi (Friar) on Apr 03, 2001 at 17:17 UTC
    Well your select will find any number which contains your @query. So you will find 
    @query=54321
654321 or
543210

but you will not find
54320 for example

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    but when it's only numerical zip maybe the following will work: 
    select min(abs(zip-@query)) from zipcodetable

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