Question

I am having trouble developing a matching algorithm in SQL. I have one table subjects. Each of these needs to be matched to the same number of rows in the table controls (for the sake of this question let’s say two rows or controls need to be selected for each subject). The location of the selected controls must match exactly, and the controls selected should have a value in match_field that is as close as possible to the subjects.

Here is some sample data:

Table subjects:

id   location    match_field
1    1           190
2    2           2000
3    1           100

Table controls:

id   location    match_field
17    1          70
11    1          180
12    1          220
13    1          240
14    1          500
15    1          600
16    1          600
10    2          30
78    2          1840
79    2          2250

Here would be the optimum result from the sample data:

subject_id control_id  location    match_field_diff
1          12          1           30
1          13          1           50
2          78          2           160
2          79          2           250
3          17          1           30
3          11          1           80

It gets tricky, because, for example, control 11 is the closest match to subject 1. However, in the optimum solution control 11 is matched to subject 3.

I believe the Hungarian Algorithm is close to the “correct” solution to this problem. However, there is not an equal number of subjects and controls, nor will all controls be used (I have a few thousand subjects and a few million potential controls).

It is not necessary to obtain the absolute optimum results; a pretty good approximation would be fine with me.

It seems that there should be a nice set-based solution to this problem, but I can’t think of how to do it. Here is some code that assigns an equal number of controls to each subject based on location only:

select * from (
    select   subject.id, 
             control.id,
             subject.location,
             row_number() over (
                 partition by subject.location
                 order by subject.id, control.id
             ) as rn,
             count(distinct control.id)     over (
                 partition by subject.location
             ) as controls_in_loc
         from subjects
         join controls on control.location = subject.location
    )
    where mod(rn,controls_in_loc+1) = 1

However, I can’t figure out how to add the fuzzy matching component. I am using DB2 but can convert an algorithm into DB2 if you are using something else.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Update: I am mostly convinced that SQL is not the right tool for this job. However, just to be sure (and because it is an interesting problem), I am offering a bounty to see if a working SQL solution is possible. It needs to be a set-based solution. It can use iteration (looping over the same query multiple times to achieve the result) but number of iterations needs to be far less than the number of rows for a large table. It should not loop over each element in the table or use cursors.

Answer 1

Although the Hungarian Algorithm is going to work, a much simpler algorithm can be used in your case. Your implicit cost matrix is a symmetric matrix of a special form:

ABS(SUBJ.match_field-CTRL.match_field)

Therefore, you can relatively easily prove that in an optimal assignment {SUBJ_i, CTRL_j} ordered by SUBJ.match_field the values of CTRL.match_field will be ordered as well.

Proof: Consider an assignment {SUBJ_i, CTRL_j} ordered by SUBJ.match_field that is not ordered by CTRL.match_field. Then you have at least one inversion, i.e. a pair of assignments {SUBJ_i1, CTRL_j1} and {SUBJ_i2, CTRL_j2} such that

SUBJ.match_field_i1 < SUBJ.match_field_i2, but

CTRL.match_field_j1 > CTRL.match_field_j2

Then you can replace the inverted pair with a non-inverted one

{SUBJ_i1, CTRL_j2} and {SUBJ_i2, CTRL_j1}

of a cost that is less than or equal to the cost of the inverted assignment for all six relative placements of SUBJ.match_field(_i1, _i2) and CTRL.match_field(_j1, _j2) (link to Wolfram Alpha). :Proof

With this observation in hand, it is easy to prove that the dynamic programming algorithm below comes up with the optimal assignment:

• Make N duplicates of each subject; order by match_field
• Order controls by match_field
• Prepare an empty array assignments of size N * subject.SIZE
• Prepare an empty 2D array mem of size N * subject.SIZE by control.SIZE for memoization; set all elements to -1
• Call Recursive_Assign defined in pseudocode below
• The assignments table now contains N assignments for each subject i at positions between N*i, inclusive, and N*(i+1), exclusive.

---

FUNCTION Recursive_Assign
    // subjects contains each original subj repeated N times
    PARAM subjects : array of int[subjectLength]
    PARAM controls: array of int[controlLength]
    PARAM mem : array of int[subjectLength,controlLength]
    PARAM sp : int // current subject position
    PARAM cp : int // current control position
    PARAM assign : array of int[subjectLength]
BEGIN
    IF sp == subjects.Length THEN RETURN 0 ENDIF
    IF mem[sp, cp] > 0 THEN RETURN mem[sp, cp] ENDIF
    int res = ABS(subjects[sp] - controls[cp])
            + Recursive_Assign(subjects, controls, mem, sp + 1, cp + 1, assign)
    assign[sp] = cp
    IF cp+1+subjects.Length-sp < controls.Length THEN
        int alt = Recursive_Assign(subjects, controls, mem, sp, cp + 1, assign)
        IF alt < res THEN
            res = alt
        ELSE
            assign[sp] = cp
        ENDIF
    ENDIF
    RETURN (mem[sp, cp] = res)
END

---

Here is an implementation of the above pseudocode using C# on ideone.

This algorithm is ready to be re-written as set-based in SQL. Trying to fit it into the original problem setting (with grouping by locations and making multiple copies of the subject) would add unnecessary layer of complexity to a procedure that is already rather complex, so I am going to simplify things quite a bit by using table-valued parameters of SQL Server. I am not sure if DB2 provides similar capabilities, but if it does not, you should be able to replace them with temporary tables.

The stored procedure below is a nearly direct transcription of the above pseudocode into SQL Server’s syntax for stored procedures:

CREATE TYPE SubjTableType AS TABLE (row int, id int, match_field int)
CREATE TYPE ControlTableType AS TABLE (row int, id int, match_field int)
CREATE PROCEDURE RecAssign (
    @subjects SubjTableType READONLY
,   @controls ControlTableType READONLY
,   @sp int
,   @cp int
,   @subjCount int
,   @ctrlCount int
) AS BEGIN
    IF @sp = @subjCount BEGIN
        RETURN 0
    END
    IF 1 = (SELECT COUNT(1) FROM #MemoTable WHERE sRow=@sp AND cRow=@cp) BEGIN
        RETURN (SELECT best FROM #MemoTable WHERE sRow=@sp AND cRow=@cp)
    END
    DECLARE @res int, @spNext int, @cpNext int, @prelim int, @alt int, @diff int, @sId int, @cId int
    SET @spNext = @sp + 1
    SET @cpNext = @cp + 1
    SET @sId = (SELECT id FROM @subjects WHERE row = @sp)
    SET @cId = (SELECT id FROM @controls WHERE row = @cp)
    EXEC @prelim = RecAssign @subjects=@subjects, @controls=@controls, @sp=@spNext, @cp=@cpNext, @subjCount=@subjCount, @ctrlCount=@ctrlCount
    SET @diff = ABS((SELECT match_field FROM @subjects WHERE row=@sp)-(SELECT match_field FROM @controls WHERE row=@cp))
    SET @res = @prelim + @diff
    IF 1 = (SELECT COUNT(1) FROM #Assignments WHERE sRow=@sp) BEGIN
        UPDATE #Assignments SET cId=@cId, sId=@sId, diff=@diff WHERE sRow=@sp
    END
    ELSE BEGIN
        INSERT INTO #Assignments(sRow, sId, cId, diff) VALUES (@sp, @sId, @cId, @diff)
    END
    IF @cp+1+@subjCount-@sp < @ctrlCount BEGIN
        EXEC @alt = RecAssign @subjects=@subjects, @controls=@controls, @sp=@sp, @cp=@cpNext, @subjCount=@subjCount, @ctrlCount=@ctrlCount
        IF @alt < @res BEGIN
            SET @res = @alt
        END
        ELSE BEGIN
            UPDATE #Assignments SET cId=@cId, sId=@sId, diff=@diff WHERE sRow=@sp
        END
    END
    INSERT INTO #MemoTable (sRow, cRow, best) VALUES (@sp, @cp, @res)
    RETURN @res
END

Here is how you call this stored procedure:

-- The procedure uses a temporary table for memoization:
CREATE TABLE #MemoTable (sRow int, cRow int, best int)
-- The procedure returns a table with assignments:
CREATE TABLE #Assignments (sRow int, sId int, cId int, diff int)

DECLARE @subj as SubjTableType
INSERT INTO @SUBJ (row, id, match_field) SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY match_field ASC)-1 AS row, id, match_field FROM subjects
DECLARE @ctrl as ControlTableType
INSERT INTO @ctrl (row, id, match_field) SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY match_field ASC)-1 AS row, id, match_field FROM controls
DECLARE @subjCount int
SET @subjCount = (SELECT COUNT(1) FROM subjects)
DECLARE @ctrlCount int
SET @ctrlCount = (SELECT COUNT(1) FROM controls)
DECLARE @best int
EXEC @best = RecAssign
    @subjects=@subj
,   @controls=@ctrl
,   @sp=0
,   @cp=0
,   @subjCount=@subjCount
,   @ctrlCount=@ctrlCount
SELECT @best
SELECT sId, cId, diff FROM #Assignments

The call above assumes that both subjects and controls have been filtered by location, and that N copies of subjects has been inserted into the table-valued parameter (or the temp table in case of DB2) before making the call.

Here is a running demo on sqlfiddle.