Re: pg_trgm word_similarity inconsistencies or bug

On Sat, Oct 28, 2017 at 11:22 AM, Arthur Zakirov <a(dot)zakirov(at)postgrespro(dot)ru>
wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 06:48:08PM +0000, Cristiano Coelho wrote:
> > Hello all, this is related to postgres 9.6 (9.6.4) and a good
> description can be found here https://stackoverflow.com/
> questions/46966360/postgres-word-similarity-not-comparing-words
> >
> > But in summary, word_similarity doesn’t seem to do exactly what the docs
> say, since it will match trigrams from multiple words rather tan doing a
> word by word comparison.
> >
> > Below is a table with output and expected output, thanks to kiln from
> stackoverflow to provide it.
> >
>
> Interesting. An klin's answer from stackoverflow.com is right.
>
> The initial example can be reduced to the next:
>
> =# select word_similarity('sage', 'age sag');
> word_similarity
> -----------------
> 1
>
> It computes maximum similarity using closest trigrams not considering
> order of
> 'sage' trigrams. It determines that all
> trigrams from 'sage' match trigrams from 'age sag'.
>
> Initial order of 'age sag' trigrams:
> ' a', ' ag', 'age', 'ge ', ' s', ' sa', 'sag', 'ag '
> ^ ^
> |from |to
> Sorted 'sage' trigrams (all of them occured within 'age sag' trigrams
> continuously):
> ' s', ' sa', 'age', 'ge ', 'sag'
>
> Maybe the problem should be solved by considering 'sage' trigrams
> initial order.

We searching for continuous extent of second string trigrams (in original
orders) which has best similarity with first string trigrams.
Possible solution could be forcing this extent boundaries to be at word
boundaries. However, it would become less convenient to search for *part*
of word. And we already have users adopt this feature.
So, I see following solution:
1) Define GUC variable which specifies whether word_similarity() should
force extent boundaries to be at word boundaries,
2) Document both cases of word_similarity() behavior.

------
Alexander Korotkov
Postgres Professional: http://www.postgrespro.com
The Russian Postgres Company