Java fuzzy String matching with names - Stack Overflow

public static final double MAX_SCORE_FOR_NO_FIRST_LETTER_MATCH = 0.3; public double scoreName(String searchName, String candidateName) { if (searchName.equals(candidateName)) return 1.0 int editDistance = StringUtils.getLevenshteinDistance( searchName, candidateName); // Normalize for length: double score = (candidateName.length() - editDistance) / candidateName.length(); // Artificially reduce the score if the first letters don't match if (searchName.charAt(0) != candidateName.charAt(0)) { score = Math.min(score, MAX_SCORE_FOR_NO_FIRST_LETTER_MATCH); } // Try Soundex or other matching here. Remember that you don't want // to go above 1.0, so you may want to create a second score and // return the higher. return Math.max(0.0, Math.min(score, 1.0)); }

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