MySQL Full-text search and SOUNDEX

Question

I am trying to implement a first and last name search using full-text search and SOUNDEX (in case if the name is misspelled).

I was trying to do something like

SELECT * 
    FROM employees 
WHERE 
    MATCH SOUNDEX(first_name, last_name) AGAINST SOUNDEX('John 1969 Ivan')

but this is not a valid syntax.

What I want to achieve, is that when a user types for example "Jon Ivan", the columns

first_name | last_name
----------------------
  John        Ivan

would match.

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

MySQL tends to fall short when it comes to text searches, fuzzy searches, misspellings, etc. I highly recommend an indexing solution like Solr. Solr supports four different types of phonetic searches: Soundex, RefinedSoundex, Metaphone, and DoubleMetaphone. It has geospatial searching and misspelling searches along with butterfly/butterflies searching. I think you will REALLY be happy with the results you get. It is lightening fast compared to MySQL