Re: Question about pattern matching

On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 9:05 AM,  <dimitris.sakellarios@telesuite.gr> wrote:
> TABLENAME
>
> id      Candidate pattern
> -------------------------
> 1       0089258068520
> 2       008925806852
> 3       00892580685
> 4       0089258068
> 5       008925806
> 6       00892580
> 7       0089258
> 8       008925
> 9       00892
> 10      0089
> 11      008
> 12      00
> 13      0
>
>
> PATTERN
> -------
> 0089257000000
>
> QUESTION
> --------
> Pls let me know which is the best way to match the
> following pattern against this table and Receive id = 8
> that is the longest matching pattern from left to right.

Without getting out the pgsql manual to write the code, I'd basically
append enough 0s to each candidate to pad them out to the same length,
all ending in one or more 0s, except the longest, which wouldn't need
padding.  Then I'd see which one matched.