2003 Exchange PROGRESS BP1110: Close Enough Indexed Record Retrieval In Progress Using Sound-alikes and Near Matches Steve Southwell ([email protected])

2003 Exchange

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BP1110:Close Enough Indexed Record Retrieval In Progress Using Sound-alikes and Near Matches

Steve Southwell ([email protected])Senior ConsultantBravePoint, Inc.

CopyLeft 2003BP1110: Close Enough - 1Sim

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Steve Southwell

Employee of BravePoint

Consultant specializing in Progress web-enablement

Business systems analyst

Dallas, Texas based


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Steve Southwell

Employee of BravePoint

Consultant specializing in Progress web-enablement

Business systems analyst

Dallas, Texas based

Just my day job until I get my record contract. Yeah, Baby!!!


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The Problem - User Perspective


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Users expect intuitive text searches.Google and other consumer-oriented web sites have raised the bar.

Find what I'm looking for – not what I typed.

It's not my problem if I'm a bad speller

Oh yeah... Put the most interesting results at the top of the list.


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The Problem – User Perspective

Users do not know “contains” syntax.More users know about quotes and the use of “and” or “or”.


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Scope of this Talk

Various tools for making searches work better

General Techniques

Examples

Specific code

Technical Analysis


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Disclaimers!

There is no “one-size-fits-all”.

You may trade performance for results.

Some techniques incompatible with each other.

It all depends on the nature of the data.


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Disclaimers!

This talk is more about theory and methods.

Your mileage may vary.

Batteries not included.

Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.


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Questions?

• Feel free to ask questions anytime.


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Types of Searches Where Close Counts

Product Searches


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Target Smart Searching Example

User Can't Spell!


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Amazon Smart Searching Example

User Can't Spell!


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Product Searches

Searches for Proper Names


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Yellow Pages Smart Searching

User Can't Spell!


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Google Smart Searching Example

User Can't Spell!


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Product Searches

Searches for Proper Names

Full-text Searches


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AltaVista Smart Searching ExampleUser Can't Spell!


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The Problem – Developer Perspective

Internal users need quick results. Time is money.

If customers want to to buy, I'll help them find it.

If they can't spell it, we still sell it.

A widget by any other name... It's still for sale.

List the good stuff first.


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Technical Issues

How can Progress store what a word sounds like?How do I search for sound-alikes or similar words?

How can I rank search results?


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Determining What a Word Sounds Like

SoundexUsed by US Census Bureau since 1880

Intended to index surnames

Only codes starting letter and 3 sounds

Had to be simple enough to do by hand.

1 = B, P, F, V 4 = L 2 = C, S, K, G, J, Q, X, Z 5 = M,N 3 = D, T 6 = R


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Soundex Examples

Last Name: Southwell

Soundex: S340

First letter = S

Next consonant = T = 3

H & W not represented.

Next consonant = L = 4

Next L is a double – skip

Pad with 0

1 = B, P, F, V 4 = L 2 = C, S, K, G, J, Q, X, Z 5 = M,N 3 = D, T 6 = R

Other S340 Names:Seidl, Steele, Staley, Stahl, Stahley, Seidel, Settle, Shadle, Shotwell, Shuttle, Sidwell, Southall, Stall, Steel, Steely, Stell, Still, Stoll, Stowell, Stull, Sudlow, Suttle


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src/samples/soundex.pDEFINE INPUT PARAMETER name AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.DEFINE OUTPUT PARAMETER code AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.

DEFINE VARIABLE e AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.DEFINE VARIABLE i AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.DEFINE VARIABLE k AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.DEFINE VARIABLE l AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.

ASSIGN l = "" name = CAPS(name) code = SUBSTRING(name,1,1).DO i = 2 TO LENGTH(name): e = ASC(SUBSTRING(name,i,1)) - 64. IF e >= 1 AND e <= 26 THEN DO: k = SUBSTRING("01230120022455012623010202",e,1). IF k <> l AND k <> "0" THEN code = code + k. IF LENGTH(code) > 3 THEN LEAVE. END. l = k.END.code = SUBSTRING(code + "000",1,4).RETURN.


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Soundey

More sound codes

Indexes vowel positions

Codes the entire word

Makes phonetic substitutions

0 = aehiouwy 5 = mn1 = bp 6 = r 2 = ckqx 7 = fv 3 = dt 8 = gj 4 = l 9 = sz


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Soundey – Continued

Soundeylib.i available free at www.FreeFrameWork.org

More sophisticated than Soundex


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Steps in Soundey Conversion

Pre-tokenMark word boundaries

“Anywhere” translations

“Ends” translations

“Begins” translations

Eliminate silent E

Unmark word boundaries

Translate characters to digits

Eliminate double digits


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Soundey Example

Word: Telephone Soundey: 3040705

Replace 'ph' with 'f': telefone

Eliminate silent 'e' on the end: telefon

Translate characters to digits:

T = 3, E = 0, L=4, E=0, F=7, O=0, N=5:

3040705


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Soundey – Disadvantages

Not as good as Metaphone

Presents problems when there are digits possible in the search target or search string.


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0 = th sound h = h*b = b l = l x = ch,sh sounds m = m s = s, some c n = n k = k, some c,g p = pj = j, some g r = rt = t, d w = w*f = f, v y = y**mostly silent

Metaphone

Published in 1990 by Lawrence Philips

Reduces alphabet to 16 consonant sounds


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Metaphone – Continued

Less fuzzy than Soundex or Soundey

Uses many English spelling heuristics to convert odd spellings to correct sounds.

Progress version available at http://www.freeframework.org/downloads/new/wordnet/

Not a strict standard

Have a look at metaphonerules.d


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Technical Issues

How can Progress determine what a word sounds like?

How do I search for sound-alikes or similar words?How can I rank search results?


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Storing the Sound-like Value

Add field(s) to your target table – one or two per target field

For example: If searching against Item.ItemName

Add Item.MetaphoneCode.

Add Item.MetaphoneFragments.

Both word-indexed.


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Metaphone and Fragments

You can use triggers to keep your fragment list up-to-date.

WordChop() fragments single words.

SuperWordChop() does sentences.

Searching for “ball*” would now find both baseball and balloon.

Storing fragments in metaphone allows for fuzzy partial matches!


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Fragments?

Standard Progress word-indexing only matches against the beginning of words.Contains “*ball*” is a syntax error

How would you match “ball” with “baseball”?

Fragment field contains this:Baseball aseball seball eball ball

Don't store fragments under 4 characters.


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Populating Metaphone Fields in DB

{lib/metaphone.i}...FOR EACH ITEM EXCLUSIVE-LOCK: ASSIGN ITEM.MetaphoneCode = toMetaphone(ITEM.ItemName +" " + ITEM.CatDescription).

Item.MetaphoneFragments = superWordChop(Item.MetaphoneCode).

END....


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Using Metaphone in 4gl Queries

MySearch = toMetaphone(MySearch).

FOR EACH ITEM WHERE ITEM.MetaphoneCode CONTAINS mySearch NO-LOCK:

...

END.


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Metaphone Use in 4gl

Demo of Sports2000 item search with Soundey: itemsearch.w


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General Metaphone Query Tips

Try regular “contains” search first.

Convert search string to Metaphone code, and do “contains” search on MetaphoneCode field.

Try Split and Rejoin

Other alternatives:Synonym and Related word searches

Neural Networks with User Feedback

Forced Ranking


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Metaphone Extensibility

Can make it replace known words or fragments:

Anywhere

Beginning of words

Ending of words

GUI demonstration – FunctionTester.w


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Other Search Issues

Unexpected Boolean operators. “and” is default

Users want to use the words “and” and “or”

Use booleanConvert() on the query string.

Hyphens / Compound Wordsdehyphenize()

Word SynonymsSee thesaurus.i and itemsearch.w for examples


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Other Search Issues

Numbers and Ordinals29 Palms / Twentynine Palms

5th Inning / Fifth Inning

Abbreviations / SlangFt. Worth, TX / Fort Worth, Texas


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Technical Issues

How can Progress store what a word sounds like?

How do I search for sound-alikes or similar words?



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Ranking Search Results

Not an exact science

Can use many criteria:Number of word matches

Similarity to key words

“Preferred” results – upsells, recent additions, etc.

Requires use of temp-table for results.

All results must be analyzed, so keep set small. (MAX-ROWS?)


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Search Ranking Demonstration

Itemsearch.w


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Technical Issues

How can Progress store what a word sounds like?

How do I search for sound-alikes or similar words?



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Source Code Availability

All source code used in this presentation can be found at the FreeFrameWork website: http://www.freeframework.org

Up-to-date copy of this presentation available with the source code at the FreeFrameWork site.


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All questionsanswered...

Stump the Chump

2003 Exchange PROGRESS BP1110: Close Enough Indexed Record Retrieval In Progress Using Sound-alikes and Near Matches Steve Southwell ([email protected])

Documents

texas basedcopyleft

businesstypes of searches

intuitive text searches

quick results

interesting results

texas basedjust

consumeroriented web

record contract