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 <ghac...@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> > -- AGENCY Software A data system that puts you in control 100% Free Software *http://agency-software.org/* ken.tan...@agency-software.org (253) 245-3801 Subscribe to the mailing list<agency-general-requ...@lists.sourceforge.net?body=subscribe> to learn more about AGENCY or follow the discussion.