I'm not sure about the indexing and performance impacts, but I think you
could use SUBSTRING with a regex to pull out the client name, and then
match on that.
SELECT substring('Client Name - Description' FROM '^(.*) [-]');
substring
-------------
Client Name
On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 12:02 AM, Ghislain Hachey <ghachey@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 02/28/2013 06:12 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
>
> On 2/27/2013 10:35 PM, Ghislain Hachey wrote:
>
> I have a varchar column with content such as "Client Name - Brief
> Description of Problem" (it's a help desk ticket system). I want to
> generate reports by clients and the only thing I can base my query on is
> this column. The client names often contain typos or are entered slightly
> differently. I installed the pg_trgm extension and it almost does what I
> want. The problem is that it searches the similarity of the whole field and
> not just the client name resulting in not so similar searches (I include my
> query below).
>
>
>
> why isn't client name a separate field?? thats the logical approach
>
>
> I know, but the system and the workflow of the staff is already in place.
> I was hoping to get something quick with minimal changes. I was also hoping
> to understand more how wildcards can be used with pg_trgm. Otherwise, I
> will add a field and modify the app.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> GH <http://www.ghachey.info>
>
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