I use the soundex algorithm to generate a 4 characters fingerprint of the phonetic sound of a string, then I create an index over that field and serch for it.
But soundex has an "issue"... the soundex fingerprint should be the same for victor than for bictor, but since the soundex index uses the first letter as part of the fingerprint, you would get something like: Soundex of victor = V1234 Soundex of bictor = B1234 So I add a "reverse index" , I reverse the chain and obtain its phonetic fingerprint. Soundex of rotciv = R1234 Soundex of rotcib = R1234 Then querys like select * from lotoftextdata where 'soundex'="V1234" or 'xednuous'="R1234" This cannot be done at db layer, must be done at app layer. will work like a charm and very fast. Yes it need a lot of work for setting it up, but it worth it. Also is much more "flexible" and "precise" than looking for %pattern% when you are dealing with human data as names, street address, locations, etc... There are other phonetic algorithms, much better, but soundex is very easy to implement. BTW, php has soundex function built in and there is a soundex java class... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundex
