How to compare complex strings????

[acco]

Hi to everybody, i write to you cause i got a big problem: i got a DB, in mysql, with more than 12000 records, each record has some values as name, surname, city, zip code and address.

My task consists to find all record with the same address. Here is the biggest problem because, while city and zip code are entered with a drop down list, and so there are no possibilities to got differences, the address is entered manually in an input text.

Some examples:

[quote]main avenue, 21[/quote]
[quote]main avanue 21[/quote]

or , worst case: te abbreviation:

[quote]liberty street, 23[/quote]
[quote]liberty st. 23[/quote]

So, it depends how the users inserts the address, but the differences can be minimal and refer to the same address. So how can i compare the differences with a bit a tollerance??

I hope that someone can help me.


Thanks and sorry for my bad english ;)

[Nelak]

have u tried the mysql LIKE statement?