Find string match to Oracle table using regex - sql

Question

I have an Oracle stored procedure on an Oracle 12c database that receives a company_name input. From that company_name, I need to find and flag Federal institutions. To accomplish that, I have a table (TBL_FED_KEY) with one column (KEY_1) of keywords. The table contains nearly 50 values like:
ARMY
FEDERAL
AIR FORCE
VETERANS
HOMELAND SECURITY
INDIAN HOSPITAL
WILL ROGERS
To give you an idea of the company_name string that could be passed through to the procedure, here are examples:
US Army - Munson Health Center
Federal Bureau of Prisons,BOP/DOJ-
Hickam Air Force Base Pharmacy
Minnesota Veterans Home Pharmacy
P.H.S. Indian Hospital
Will Rogers Health Center
What Oracle SQL can be used to match the incoming company_name against TBL_FED_KEY.KEY_1? I've tried multiple variations of REGEXP_INSTR but I can't seem to get anything to work 100%. Is REGEXP_INSTR even the best tool to accomplish this?
Thanks!

Answer 1

You could just use like:
select f.*
from TBL_FED_KEY f
where lower(i.name) like '%' || lower(KEY_1) || '%'

Answer 2

Seems you want case-insensitive match among those string. So, use REGEXP_LIKE() function with case-insensitive(i) option :
SELECT *
FROM TBL_FED_KEY
WHERE REGEXP_LIKE(company_name,key_1,'i')

Answer 3

I am not sure what the procedure is supposed to do after it "flags" the company as federal vs. not. I would instead write it as a function as shown below (but you can easily reuse most of the code in a procedure, if needed).
Then I illustrate how the function can be used directly in SQL. You can also use it in PL/SQL if needed, but in most cases you don't. Note - the same idea can be implemented exclusively in SQL, resulting in faster execution, since you don't need PL/SQL at all. Important - even in plain SQL, this should be implemented via a semi join, as I demonstrated, for faster execution.
Setup:
create table tbl_fed_key (key_1 varchar2(200));
insert into tbl_fed_key
select 'ARMY' from dual union all
select 'FEDERAL' from dual union all
select 'AIR FORCE' from dual union all
select 'VETERANS' from dual union all
select 'HOMELAND SECURITY' from dual union all
select 'INDIAN HOSPITAL' from dual union all
select 'WILL ROGERS' from dual
;
commit;
Function code:
create or replace function is_federal_institution(company_name varchar2)
return varchar
deterministic
as
is_fed varchar2(1);
begin
select case when exists ( select key_1
from tbl_fed_key
where instr(upper(company_name), upper(key_1)) > 0
)
then 'Y' else 'N' end
into is_fed
from dual;
return is_fed;
end;
/
SQL test:
with
inputs (str) as (
select 'Joe and Bob Army Supply Store' from dual union all
select 'Mary Poppins Indian Hospital' from dual union all
select 'Bridge Association of NYC' from dual union all
select 'Will Rogers Garden' from dual union all
select 'First Federal Bank NA' from dual
)
select str, is_federal_institution(str) as is_federal
from inputs
;
STR IS_FEDERAL
------------------------------ ----------
Joe and Bob Army Supply Store Y
Mary Poppins Indian Hospital Y
Bridge Association of NYC N
Will Rogers Garden Y
First Federal Bank NA Y
As you can see, I threw in a few false positives - to illustrate the important fact that this "technological" solution is only partial. A human will still need to review the individual hits, if accuracy is important.