In today’s world of unstructured data and inconsistent user input, exact matches in search operations often fall short. Whether you’re working on a document management system, content analysis tool, or enterprise search engine, implementing fuzzy search allows you to retrieve relevant results even when the search query has typos, spelling variations, or minor differences. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to implement fuzzy search in C# using Conholdate.Total for .NET SDK. You’ll learn how to search across multiple files stored in various folders using adjustable similarity levels for greater accuracy and flexibility.
Why Use Fuzzy Search?
Fuzzy search is an essential feature for any modern application that handles user-generated content or works with diverse text sources. Unlike exact search, which only returns results that match the query exactly, fuzzy search retrieves documents that are close enough to the search query based on a defined level of similarity. This approach significantly improves user experience by accounting for typos, spelling inconsistencies, or slight linguistic variations.
For example, in a scenario where users search for the word “reciept” instead of “receipt,” an exact search would fail, while a fuzzy search would still return relevant results. This is especially useful in fields like legal document retrieval, academic research, and enterprise data mining, where precision and flexibility are both crucial.
Fuzzy Search - .NET Configuration
You need to install Conholdate.Total for .NET with the following NuGet installation command:
Install-Package Conholdate.Total
Fuzzy Search Across Multiple Files and Folders in C#
You can perform fuzzy searches across a wide set of documents stored in different folders. You can easily configure similarity levels and define the structure for indexing and searching.
// Creating an index folder and add document's folder to it
Index index = new Index("indexing-folder-path");
index.Add("path/parent-folder");
SearchOptions options = new SearchOptions();
options.FuzzySearch.Enabled = true; // Enabling the fuzzy search
options.FuzzySearch.FuzzyAlgorithm = new SimilarityLevel(0.7);
string query = "nulla"; // search approximate matches of the provided query
SearchResult result = index.Search(query, options);
In this code snippet:
A new index is created pointing to the directory used for indexing.
A parent folder containing all the documents is added to this index.
Fuzzy search is enabled through the SearchOptions class.
The SimilarityLevel is set to 0.7, which corresponds to a 70% match or 30% error tolerance.
The search query “nulla” is passed, and the system retrieves results that meet the similarity threshold.
You can adjust the similarity level depending on how strict or lenient you want your search results to be. A lower threshold allows for more flexibility, while a higher threshold ensures tighter matching.
Benefits of Customizable Similarity Level
One of the standout features of Conholdate.Total for .NET SDK is the ability to control the similarity threshold for fuzzy search. This level of customization provides fine-tuned control over the matching process, ensuring that results are both relevant and reliable.
Higher Similarity (e.g., 0.9): Use when precision is critical, and you want results that are very close to the original query.
Lower Similarity (e.g., 0.6): Suitable for exploratory searches or when users may input data with frequent errors.
Being able to change this value programmatically gives developers the flexibility to adapt to different business use cases without needing to reindex or reconfigure the entire system.
Free Evaluation License
You can obtain a free temporary license to avoid the trial limitations of the SDK and be able to test it to full capacity.
Conclusion
Fuzzy search is a critical feature for applications that need to offer smart, tolerant, and user-friendly search capabilities. By using Conholdate.Total for .NET SDK, developers can integrate powerful fuzzy search functionality into their C# applications with minimal effort. Whether you’re searching across thousands of legal documents or scanning through user-generated content, this SDK provides the tools to handle it with precision and flexibility. Adjust similarity levels, search across folders, and retrieve the most relevant results, even when the input isn’t perfect.