Similarity function in Postgres with pg_trgm

sql postgresql fuzzy-search
Alex Gaynor picture Alex Gaynor · Feb 12, 2010 · Viewed 23.2k times · Source

I'm trying to use the similarity function in Postgres to do some fuzzy text matching, however whenever I try to use it I get the error:

function similarity(character varying, unknown) does not exist

If I add explicit casts to text I get the error:

function similarity(text, text) does not exist

My query is:

SELECT (similarity("table"."field"::text, %s::text)) AS "similarity", "table".* FROM "table" WHERE similarity > .5 ORDER BY "similarity" DESC LIMIT 10

Do I need to do something to initalize pg_trgm?

Answer

morja picture morja · May 14, 2013

With postgresql 9.1:

after installing (on ubuntu) sudo apt-get install postgresql-contrib as tomaszbak answered.

you just have to execute the sql command:

CREATE EXTENSION pg_trgm;

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