Working with Suggestion-Based Matching

SAS Data Management Studio supports various approaches to matching:

• Traditional matching is the most straightforward matching method. With traditional matching, match definitions produce a single match code for an input string.
• With combination-based matching, match definitions can produce multiple match codes for an input string (at a given sensitivity setting) by using token combination rules. These rules enable you to omit different combinations of tokens or to change the order of tokens, so that multiple token assignment orders can be evaluated.
• With suggestion-based matching, match definitions can produce multiple match codes for an input string, based on alternative "suggestions" for words. You can specify possible alternatives for words within a token. This addresses such problems as incorrect spelling of a word, typographical errors, or otherwise poor data entry. For more information, see Suggestion-Based Matching.

It is possible to use both combination-based matching and suggestion-based matching at the same time. It is also possible to use only one of these two matching methods, or to use neither matching method. Using neither matching method is the same as traditional matching.