How to implement Fuzzy search in strapi cms

Question

Any ideas on how to implement fuzzy search in strapi (with mysql)?

Example: when i search for 'tvs ad' i would like to get the entry with name of 'tv syd'

Answer 1

You could create a custom controller in Strapi and include a fuzzy search library like fuse.js

If you need help creating a custom controller or connecting it to an end point see this page in the docs

This is a simple controller to do a fuzzy search on a table called films and searching the title and synopsis fields with a search term

'use strict';
const Fuse = require('fuse.js');

module.exports = {
  async fuzzySearch(ctx) {
    
    const searchTerm = ctx.query._search;
    
    const allFilms = await strapi.services.films.find();
    
    const fuse = new Fuse(allFilms, {
      keys:["title", "synopsis"]
    });
    
    const searchedFilms = fuse.search(searchTerm);
    
    return searchedFilms;
  }
}

For a large database table you'd need to write a custom mysql query. But I found this solution works great if you have less than a few thousand entries because fuze gives you loads of options for querying multiple fields and weighting fields differently (i.e. making the film title more important than the synopsis).