Fuzzy Logic - search for similar values

**mojo249** · 01-22-2012, 11:20 AM

Hi

Does anyone know of a function to perform a fuzzy logic match of 2 values, which are similar but not exactly the same? So for example, the strings 'ABC4005' and 'ABC400S' or '0094567' and '00094567' would be flagged as matching because they're the same apart from one character.

Any help appreciated.

Dion

**MarvinP** · 01-22-2012, 11:29 AM

Hi mojo249,

Look at http://www.blog.methodsinexcel.co.uk...7/fuzzy-logic/ and download the sample file. It has a SoundEx function that may work for youj.

**Firefly2012** · 01-22-2012, 12:41 PM

Dion

There is a sophisticated fuzzy vlookup code here:

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=195635

**mojo249** · 01-22-2012, 12:54 PM

Thanks for the suggestion Marvin.

All of those methods are incredibly clever but they seem to deal with alpha only strings (people or place names) which are spelt differently but pronounced similarly (such as Tsolakis vs Chollakis).

I'm dealing with alpha/numeric or numeric only reference numbers which don't match for any number of reasons - because 1 character has been entered incorrectly (5 entered as an S), 2 characters have been transposed (ELFT001 and ELTF001), leading zeros have been omitted (0001234 and 1234) etc.

Dion