__similar in filter

[Filip Gruszczyński]

I would like to propose a new filtering method for char fields, that could be used instead of __exact or __iexact. __similar would return models, which field is similar to the given string. Example use case looks like this: user wants to search for some term, so we try to find objects, that satisfy his query.

objects = Klass.objects.filter(name__iexact=user_term)
if objects.count() > 0:
  return render_to_response('found.html', {'objects': 'objects'})
else:
  names = Klass.objects.filter(name__similar=user_term).values('name')
  return render_to_response('did_you_mean.html', {'names': names})

If he inputs name, that can't be found, we try to find to some suggestions, like Google does. I don't really know, if databases support this kind of operations. Could this be done? If it can be done and someone could point me, where I should start, I could try to create a patch.

[Alex Gaynor]

Fixed formatting, please use preview.

[Alex Gaynor]

This is not a feature of most RDBMS as far as I know. I suggest taking a look at Haystack which does have a feature like this.