New Element Type for product names

[ffuf-schilling]

I've been trying to compare model names of different machines. I played around with the configuration of my elements but I'm not getting good results.

I would like to get a high match score if one string contains the similar smaller string

STP375S-B60/Wnh_1500V_20V02_1756 STP 375S-B60/Wnh

If there is a configuration that would result in my desired score that would be the best but if not then I suggest having a new Element type "Product Designation" that could compare strings like "M80 PDF C" sensibly.

[manishobhatia]

Yes, this scenario is supported through configuration, and follows a similar pattern described in NGram token match

The basic idea is to break the elements into subset of strings (grams) and match them. So in the example you gave the 2 strings will be broken down in this fashion (assuming tri-gram subsets)

STP375S-B60/Wnh_1500V_20V02_1756 -> ['STP', 'TP3', 'P37', '375', '75S', ...., 'Wnh', 'nh_', 'h_1' ..... '756']
STP 375S-B60/Wnh                 -> ['STP', 'TP3', 'P37', '375', '75S', ...., 'Wnh']

So when calculating the results the matching grams will shore up the score for strings having similar substring. You will most likely never have a 100% match, but you can setup a lower threshold which works for your use case.

Here are the configurable items I would recommend to experiment with

• Use Tokenizer function: Each Element object allows you to override it with pre-defined functions. There are triGramTokenizer and decaGramTokenizer that you can experiment with
• You can also define a custom one (see unit test as example) and pass in a function that creates a different gram length
• And change default threshold for Element match if needed

Once you have a good general solution for matching product names using either of this configuration, or any additional code, will be happy to include this as a new element type. Feel free to open a PR to get this going

Hope this help

Thanks

[manishobhatia]

Closing this issue, Feel free to open one if additional support it needed