Implementing Fuzzy Search with OData

[starshinata]

Hi everyone,

Our team is currently working on a project where the client requirement is to implement fuzzy search. However, we have noticed that OData does not support fuzzy search out of the box.

We would like to inquire if there is a recommended approach to achieve this functionality using OData.

We are looking at implementing a custom filter option such as: odata/profiles?$filter=fuzzy(FirstName, 'John') where we can provide a custom implementation for this filter, using a third-party library, in a way that integrates with OData.

However, we are open to other suggestions as well.

Could you please advise us on the best way to approach this? Any guidance, examples, or references to relevant documentation would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your assistance.

[julealgon]

I believe the best extension point to add support for this in odata would be to use the built-in $search query. You can implement anything you want behind that operation.

• $compute and $search in ASP.NET Core OData 8

I'd either go with that, or as a fallback I'd write a custom bound action on the entityset.

[starshinata]

Thanks a lot for the help, @julealgon!

[Mhirji]

@starshinata , based on the example you provided in terms of what you are trying to achieve, unless you require a percentage on the probability of the match, you could also use the "contains" operator. This would translate to a like in SQL.