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node-similarity-search-native/README.md
2025-04-18 08:22:35 +02:00

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# Similarity Search
A Node.js module that performs word order independent similarity search on strings.
This module is built as a native addon that uses C code for fast similarity computations. It uses Jaccard similarity between word sets to find matches regardless of word order.
## Installation
```bash
npm install
```
## Usage
```javascript
const SimilaritySearch = require('./index');
// Create a new search index with default capacity (500)
const index = new SimilaritySearch();
// Add strings to the index
index.addString('bio bizz');
index.addString('lightmix bizz btio substrate');
index.addString('bizz bio mix light');
// Add multiple strings at once
index.addStrings([
'plant growth bio formula',
'garden soil substrate'
]);
// Search the index with a query and similarity cutoff
const results = index.search('bio bizz', 0.2);
// Display results
results.forEach(match => {
console.log(`${match.similarity.toFixed(2)}: ${match.string}`);
});
```
## API
### `new SimilaritySearch([capacity])`
Creates a new search index.
- `capacity` (optional): Initial capacity for the index. Default: 500.
### `addString(str)`
Adds a string to the index.
- `str`: The string to add.
- Returns: Boolean indicating success.
### `addStrings(strings)`
Adds multiple strings to the index.
- `strings`: Array of strings to add.
- Returns: Boolean indicating if all adds were successful.
### `search(query, [cutoff])`
Searches the index for strings similar to the query.
- `query`: The search query.
- `cutoff` (optional): Similarity threshold between 0.0 and 1.0. Default: 0.2.
- Returns: Array of matching results, sorted by similarity (descending).
### `size()`
Gets the number of strings in the index.
- Returns: Number of strings in the index.
## Helper Functions
### `SimilaritySearch.createTestIndex([size])`
Creates a test index with random data.
- `size` (optional): Number of strings to generate. Default: 500.
- Returns: A new SimilaritySearch instance with random data.
### `SimilaritySearch.benchmark(index, queries, [cutoff])`
Benchmarks the search performance.
- `index`: The index to benchmark.
- `queries`: Array of search queries.
- `cutoff` (optional): Similarity threshold. Default: 0.2.
- Returns: Benchmark results.
## How It Works
The similarity search uses Jaccard similarity between word sets:
```
similarity = (number of matching words) / (total unique words)
```
This means word order doesn't matter - "bio bizz" will match with "bizz bio" with 100% similarity.
## Building
To rebuild the native addon:
```bash
npm install
```
## Testing
Run the test script:
```bash
npm test
```