Is there any way to write an MySQL search that can compensate for user-errors in spelling and the like?
As random examples, someone might type foo@gmial.com instead of foo@gmail.com.
Even help with search terms to help pull up relevant data from Google will be helpful. I'm not looking for a search engine, per say, what I'm looking for is some kind of spelling aid for an administrative control panel.
The topic you're delving into is called "Fuzzy Lookup". It's a big rabbit hole to jump down, depending on how precise you'd like to get. There are various methods, such as:
- soundex
- Damerau-Levenshtein distance
- Jaro-Winkler distance
- metaphone
- double-metaphone
Some references to check out:
- PHP/MySQL small-scale fuzzy search
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximate_string_matching
- How do I do a fuzzy match of company names in MYSQL with PHP for auto-complete?
- Implementation of Levenshtein distance for mysql/fuzzy search?
There are many ways to do the same. One of I personally like is SOUNDS LIKE.
Checkout the SOUNDEX Example.
