Why the Names of Foreign Manufacturers and US Importers in the Raw US Customs’ Import Data are a problem for SQL Queries?

If you are running queries against the raw US Customs’ Import Data, you – the user – will always bear the burden of constructing search strings that pull all versions of foreign manufacturers and US importers.

You bear this burden because SQL limits how queries can do pattern matching.

The Limits of Pattern Matching in SQL

The SQL programming language has two principal methods for pattern matching.

The first method is the symbol: = (Equal To).

The second method is the word: LIKE.

When a query does pattern matching with =, the query is only looking for results that are Equal To your search string.

When you use the word LIKE in regards to query doing pattern matching, just know that LIKE actually means “contains”.

When a query does pattern matching with LIKE, the query is looking for results that “contains” your search string.

How Like and Equal To Affect Your Searches of US Customs’ Import Data

	Versions of Names in the Raw US Customs’ Import Data Final Version after Manifest Journals’ Name Cracking North Carolina Textile Products North Carolina Textile Products N Carolina Tex Products North Carolina Textile Products N C Textile Products North Carolina Textile Products NC Textile Products North Carolina Textile Products North Carolina Text Prod North Carolina Textile Products

Say, you run a search for North Carolina Textile Products against the raw US Customs’ Import Data without using Manifest Journals’ Name Cracking Techology.

You probably already know that your result set won’t include records where the US importer name matches one of the four other versions of North Carolina Textile Products.

To have your result set include all records, you would need to incorporate the other four versions as part of your search.

Two big problems in mixing SQL Queries with US Customs&rsquo Import Data Without Using Manifest Journals’ Name Cracking Technology

1. To get a complete result set for any foreign manufacturer or US importer, you would have to know all versions of the names. (Note: This supposes that you are aware that many versions can exist for a company’s name.)

2. For each foreign manufacturers or US Importer, you have to construct a search string for all versions of the company’s name.

This is labor intensive. In addition, you may do this for each search but your colleagues may not repeat the process.

We put together two situations to show how you would construct search strings to get complete result sets from the US Customs’ Import Data.

You’ll see that SQL can only “pattern match” the names of US importers or foreign manufacturers to your search strings. If a name doesn’t match your search strings’ patterns, you won’t get the records in your result set.

In terms of SQL, Manifest Journals’ name cracking technology takes the guesswork out of which search strings will yield the fullest result sets.

Situation #1

Situation #2