Question

I have a MySQL database I’m searching through. Lets say this is a database of people. When querying for a specific record, it is possible to find a match 100% on each attribute. But querying the database to find closest match on probability (closest matches on table attributes) is more of the strategy.

In this scenario, does it make sense to create a temporary table (much like a tally-sheet) to indicate what attributes match/what attributes are present? What is the typical approach to doing advanced searches on database like this?

Example (below) of a hypothetical stored Procedure

*parameters are just to exemplify how I would search. I’m not concerned how to perform my selects. Question is about approach, strategy, technique *

call FindPerson ("Brown Eyes", "Brown hair", "Height:6'1", "white", "Name:Joe" ,"weight180", "Age 34" "sex m");

RESULT TABLE
NAME  AGE HEIGHT WEIGHT HAIR  SKIN  sex  RANK_MATCH
Joe   32  6'1    180    Brown white m    1
Mike  33  6'1    179    Brown white m    2
James 31  6'0    179    Brown black m    3 

Answer 1

Just out of my mind. You can create your own score and sort by it. Something like

SELECT `id`,
  (IF(`age`=32,1,0)+IF(`height`="6'1",1,0)+...) as  `score`
FROM `people`
HAVING `score` > 0
ORDER BY `score` DESC
LIMIT 10;

With this, you can handle every field with its own comparison, and also weight the individual attributes by not just add 1 but 2 or more.
But I’m quiet not sure, how performant this is.