Most match result

[Bigsin]

I'm searching for a query which search for te most match based on the search value '12345678'
The search value must be start from the first number.


My database has to colums

A |B
------------------------
1 |a
12 |b
123 |c
1234 |d
2345678 |e

What I want is the result of column B where the match is 1234. The result must be 'd' in this case

I hope someone can help me with this query.

 

[MakeItSo]

The most what?
The most similar? In that case you would get 2345678.
The longest substring match? would again be 2345678.
The longest substring mathc beginning from the first character?

I don't quite get what exactly you need.

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[gmmastros]

try....

Declare @Search VarChar(20);
Set @Search = '12345678';

Select Top 1 *
From   YourTableNameHere
Where  @Search like ColumnA + '%'
Order By Len(Id) Desc;

-George
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[Bigsin]

@MakeItSo

The first charachter of '12345678' must match with the first character of column a.

So the match can't be '234567'

@gmmastros

Thanks, but not working.

 

[Bigsin]

I have found what I needed


Declare @Search VarChar(20);
Set @Search = '12345678'

SELECT TOP 1
[a]
,
FROM [database]
WHERE a = SUBSTRing(@Search,1,1) or a = SUBSTRing(@Search,1,2) or a = SUBSTRing(@Search,1,3) or a = SUBSTRing(@Search,1,4)
order by a desc

 

[Olaf Doschke]

I think Georges code just needs a slight change:

Declare @Search VarChar(20);
Set @Search = '12345678';

Select Top 1 *
From   YourTableNameHere
Where  @Search like [b]Rtrim[/b](ColumnA) + '%'
Order By Len(Rtrim([b]ColumnA[/b])) Desc;

You fail to even recognize the good idea, your substring conditions only cover cases up to four chars matching, for the general case you would need to continue and it's way more elegant to simply just rtrim.

Bye, Olaf.