is it possible to do fuzzy match merge with python pandas?

Question

I have two DataFrames which I want to merge based on a column. However, due to alternate spellings, different number of spaces, absence/presence of diacritical marks, I woul

Answer 1

I have written a Python package which aims to solve this problem:

pip install fuzzymatcher

You can find the repo here and docs here.

Basic usage:

Given two dataframes df_left and df_right, which you want to fuzzy join, you can write the following:

from fuzzymatcher import link_table, fuzzy_left_join

# Columns to match on from df_left
left_on = ["fname", "mname", "lname",  "dob"]

# Columns to match on from df_right
right_on = ["name", "middlename", "surname", "date"]

# The link table potentially contains several matches for each record
fuzzymatcher.link_table(df_left, df_right, left_on, right_on)

Or if you just want to link on the closest match:

fuzzymatcher.fuzzy_left_join(df_left, df_right, left_on, right_on)