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Suppose, i have a database, the database of companies. This database was made from few other databases. Now, i have a lot of companies with almost the same names and the same addresses. I'm sure that the "similar" companies are the same, in spite of fact that they differ each other few signs in the name and have different ID's.
The general question is: how to create a wizard which can help user to analyze database, to suggest for user which companies are probably the same? How to merge companies ID's and remove wrong inputs?
I'm sure that, i can't merge ID's without help from user.
In this[^] thread, i've learned that perfect algorithm doesn't exists. Now, i know methods to compare 2 strings to get to know how similar they are (percentage).
Pattern Matching: the Gestalt Approach[^],
Simil algorithm[^]
I'm trying to write algorithm which can:
1) compare the array of strings,
2) find a string with the longest similarity (biggest substring), to use it as a model,
3) define a similarity (in percentage) to the rest of strings, based on model.
It's time to begin a discuss!
losmac
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After all that, what's the problem??
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It really depends on the number of records; for thousands or more, you need to automate it somehow.
Otherwise you might consider this (which assumes zip codes are correct):
concatenate zip code and company name (with spaces, hyphens, periods, ... removed), then sort alphabetically, and scan the list manually
major problem would be errors in first letter (ZEROX vs XEROX, CODAK vs KODAK).
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The suggested Gestalt correlation gives the following correlation figures without considering any additonal information. Note that it would give similar results if the "typo" was somewhere in the middle of the text.
|----|---------|-------|-------|
|rank|correlat.|-first-|-second|
|----|---------|-------|-------|
| 1 | 80.00% | ZEROX | XEROX |
| 2 | 80.00% | CODAK | KODAK |
|----|---------|-------|-------|
| 3 | 20.00% | ZEROX | CODAK |
| 4 | 20.00% | ZEROX | KODAK |
| 5 | 20.00% | XEROX | CODAK |
| 6 | 20.00% | XEROX | KODAK |
|----|---------|-------|-------|
The first 2 cases (80%) are closely related, all others (below 50%) are clear mismatch.
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losmac wrote: I'm trying to write algorithm which can:
1) compare the array of strings,
There are a few algo's that you can use to compare strings, like the SOUNDEX[^]-function in SQL, Metaphone[^] in PHP, or the Levenshtein distance[^] (also called "edit distance").
losmac wrote: 2) find a string with the longest similarity (biggest substring), to use it as a
model,
Give the matches scores, and pick the one with the highest score
losmac wrote: It's time to begin a discuss
Discuss what?
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
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Hi!I am a student of Computer Science and have a final year project like Photoshop in vb.net and want to create Layer like Photoshop.Can any one help me?
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Help you with what? You haven't asked a question about a specific problem.
Oh, and using VB.NET to do graphics work is probably not the best choice. Still doable, but with more effort than using C#.
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Basically, agree, but by somewhat different reasons.
Yes, VB.NET is similar in features compared to C# but always goes behind. Microsoft just does not take VB.NET as seriously as the flagship of C#. Other problems are more serious: VB.NET would be a pretty bad investment. First, C# and C++/CLI go through strict standardization under ECMA and then under ISO, but it never happens to VB.NET. I cannot believe it might ever happen in future.
There is one more reason, the social one. The fact is: many developers considering themselves at least "professional" do not take anything named similar to "VB" as "real". The historical reasons just do not matter (VB earned bad reputation with both quality and popularity with poor developers, and whatever else), this is the real attitude of real people. This is not for the flame wars or something like that. I'm trying not to express my own attitude; this is just a "medical fact", fact of nature.
In fact, if you try to find an answer of some technical question in .NET, best answers are usually in C#, and much more finding on most difficult topics will appear in C#. So, a serious VB.NET developer should also understand at least some C#.
By the way C++/CLI is a powerful thing which should be taken into consideration. I can see some drawbacks in it (I used to discuss on CodeProject pages). For example, I saw Microsoft article where they explained that it has its special optimized instead of general-purpose .NET optimizer used with other compilers. Mixed mode and value (stack) semantic for reference type are unique to this language (not counting IL).
—SASergey A Kryukov
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I've been doing this for a LONG LONG time. I really don't need the history lesson on why VB has the reputation it does.
Also, Microsoft DOES take VB.NET seriously and it shows as the feature sets between C# and VB.NET have been merging quite a bit and continues to [ut considerable resources into adding features concurrently into both languages. And with .NET 4.5, VB.NET will get a feature you can't have in C# yet. I'll let you squirm on what that is for a while while I go try to remember what it was! 
All I was refering to in this thread was that VB.NET doesn't support pointers, which makes image processing quite a bit easier.
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Oh, now I remember what it was. VB.NET finally gets Iterators and Yield support, but VB will support anonymous functions as an Iterator function, C# won't.
Also, Try blocks with Yields are also handled differently. C# will allow a yield return in the Try block, but only if there is no Catch block.
VB.NET will allow Yield in Try blocks with or without a Catch block. Kind of makes exception handling interesting.
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Interesting, thanks for a note.
I still feel like VB.NET goes behind, overall.
May be I'm wrong, but I feel you are overreacting about "history lesson", saying as if it's something bad. What's wrong with lessons? As you probably know this history better then I do (mainly because I never allowed myself to play with the idea of accepting the opportunity to work with VB), you can always tell us something more interesting and useful than I could. And correct me if I'm wrong. I've noticed a long time ago that reading your posts can be really useful; as that can give a chance to learn something, and I'm trying not to miss a lesson, even if I think I know things the best way — but I always can be mistaken, like probably all of us. Perhaps it's good to remember that if I reply to your post, it does not mean that I always address personally to you. Everyone can read our conversation.
Thank you for interesting discussion. Will talk to you later.
—SASergey A Kryukov
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SAKryukov wrote: I've noticed a long time ago that reading your posts can be really useful; as
that can give a chance to learn something, and I'm trying not to miss a lesson
Well thank you! I didn't know I had a follower!
SAKryukov wrote: May be I'm wrong, but I feel you are overreacting about "history lesson", saying
as if it's something bad.
You're right, I probably did. I have been a bit touchy lately and there's no real excuse for that.
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I hope we are good. And we are doing basically the same thing on this site for this community. As to the criticism and possible negative estimates or votes, they are normal, absolutely unavoidable in any truly creative environment, as well as our mistakes, and they can be and should be handled in productive and constructive ways.
Best wishes,
--SA
Sergey A Kryukov
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No, we're good. If I was pissed at you, I'd just ignore you.
SAKryukov wrote: As to the criticism and possible negative estimates or votes, they are normal,
absolutely unavoidable in any truly creative environment, as well as our
mistakes, and they can be and should be handled in productive and constructive
ways.
Sadly, very true and Agreed.
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Sergey A Kryukov
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Sorry if I'm jumping in here but I thought the conversation was interesting, I have worked with diehards of both language conventions. Both had valid reasons for their preferred environment.
But if I may, as a programmer that started writing software using Clipper (way back when, but late in life mid 40's and now nearing retirement) then progressed to VB4-6 and now VB.Net may I suggest that VB was for me an easier language to learn, and more importantly correct me if I'm wrong. One can create a working application very quickly using Visual Basic.
It's been a long time since I have to anything to do in C mainly because the company I work for uses Visual Basic as it's preferred programming environment.
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I have this code in CellValidating in order to try and position the cursor in the cell and select the contents, but the contents are not being selected (highlighted). Can anyone tell me why?
dg.Rows(e.RowIndex).Selected = True
dg(dg.Columns("Odds").Index, e.RowIndex).Selected = True
dg.CurrentCell = dg(dg.Columns("Odds").Index, e.RowIndex)
dg.BeginEdit(True)
Thanks
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I think it's because you're doing all this from the Validating event handler. If you wait till after validation is done, you might get away with this.
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how to detect installed oledb provider in my PC. Jet 4.0 or ACE 12
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Try to connect to a database with one. If it fails, try the other.
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My idea exactly, but then I didn't want to reply that, as it sounds a bit like "I really don't know"...
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Really, it's the only reliable way to do it. Actually, I'd try using ACE.12 first, then downgrade to 4.0.
You could start check the version of Office that's installed, but then some application could have installed one of the Access Runtimes and making the detection code inaccurate.
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I fully agree; even if I knew a way to determine something like that, I'd probably go for the functional test anyway. With external dependencies involved, I prefer to eat the pudding, rather than to look for the boxes.
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Luc Pattyn wrote: I prefer to eat the pudding, rather than to look for the boxes.
I haven't heard that one before. That's a good one.
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