CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexmongodbinternationalizationdiacritics
Josh
Josh

Reputation: 4622

Mongodb match accented characters as underlying character

In MongoDB "db.foo.find()" syntax, how can I tell it to match all letters and their accented versions?

For example, if I have a list of names in my database:
João
François
Jesús

How would I allow a search for the strings "Joao", "Francois", or "Jesus" to match the given name?
I am hoping that I don't have to do a search like this every time:
db.names.find({name : /Fr[aã...][nñ][cç][all accented o characters][all accented i characters]s/ })

Upvotes: 18

Views: 16872

Answers (4)

Elie Steinbock
Elie Steinbock

Reputation: 5088

As of Mongo 3.2, you can use $text and set $diacriticSensitive to false:

{
  $text:
    {
      $search: <string>,
      $language: <string>,
      $caseSensitive: <boolean>,
      $diacriticSensitive: <boolean>
    }
}

See more in the Mongo docs: https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/operator/query/text/

Upvotes: 24

mnemosyn
mnemosyn

Reputation: 46291

I suggest you add an indexed field like NameSearchable of simplified strings, e.g.

  • João -> JOAO
  • François -> FRANCOIS
  • Jesús -> JESUS
  • Jürgen -> JUERGEN

The same mapping that is used when inserting new items in the database can be used when searching. The original string with correct casing and accents will be preserved.

Most importantly, the query can make use of indexing. Case insensitive queries and regex queries can not use indexes (with the exception of rooted regexs) and will grow prohibitively slow on large collections.

Oh, and since the simplified strings can be created from the original strings, it's not a problem to add this to existing collections.

Upvotes: 11

Menda
Menda

Reputation: 1813

In this blog: http://tech.rgou.net/en/php/pesquisas-nao-sensiveis-ao-caso-e-acento-no-mongodb-e-php/

Somebody used the approach you were trying to do. This is as far as I know the only solution for the latest MongoDB version.

Upvotes: 3

DhruvPathak
DhruvPathak

Reputation: 43235

It seems more like fuzzy matching search which mongoDb does not support currently. What you can try is:

/1. Store variations of the name in seperate element in the collection for each entry. Then the query can be run by finding if the search term exists within the variations array.

or

/2. Store soundex string for each of the names in the same collection. Then for your search string, get a soundex string , and query the database, you will get result which has similar Soundex result to your query. You can filter and verify that data more in your script. example :

Soundex code for François = F652, Soundex Code for Francois = F652

Soundex code for Jesús = J220, Soundex Code for Jesus = J220

Check more here : http://creativyst.com/Doc/Articles/SoundEx1/SoundEx1.htm#SoundExConverter

Upvotes: 0

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