How to find close matches within the same column with Rails and Active Record?

Question

I know how to find exact duplicate records in the same table with the base SQL language and active query language. But I need to know how to search for a close match, I would like to take into account spelling errors. What is the best way to find potential duplicates and close matches in a rails application? I use MySQL as a database.

Edit: the type of data that I would like to map is the rows; they are stored in the database as rows.

Answer 1

I think thinking_sphinx and Sphinx may be two interesting tools for you. What you want is provided by a set of functions called full-text search, which is a big topic to explain in one answer, but you probably want to know about word closeness and tokens