Address Matching

When an address is parsed into address fields, values can get put into the wrong field. Address field groups encapsulate common transpositions between fields. When scoring matching values in fields, RNI uses address field groups to group related or similar fields. If two field values match, but they are dissimilar fields, RNI applies a penalty to that match, reducing the score for that pair.

When matching two fields, the following penalties are applied:

RNI compares the fields in the query with the fields in the index, matching each non-blank field. Addresses do not have to contain all the same fields to be compared and matched.

As with other objects, the query for an address consists of two parts: the base query and the RNI pairwise address match rescore query.

Base Query. The base query is a standard query against the address field. Refer to Query the Index.

curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/rni-test/_search' -H'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{
  "query" : {
    "match" : {
      "residence" : "{\"road\" : \"Main\", \"state\" : \"MA\"}"
    }
  }
}'

RNI Rescore with Addresses. Refer to Rescoring with RNI Pairwise Name Match.

curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/rni-test/_search' -H'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{
  "query" : {
    "match" : { "residence" : "{\"road\" : \"Main\", \"state\" : \"MA\"}" }
  },
  "rescore" : {
    "query" : {
      "rescore_query" : {
        "function_score" : {
          "address_score" : {
            "field" : "residence",
            "query_address" : {
              "road" : "Main", 
              "state" : "MA"
            }
          }
        }
      }, 
      "query_weight" : 0.0,
      "rescore_query_weight" : 1.0
    }
  }
}'

The query returns a hit with the RNI address match score.

"hits": {
 "total" : 1,
  "max_score" : 0.6057692,
  "hits" : [
    {
      "_index" : "rni-test",
      "_type" : "_doc",
      "_id" : "1",
      "_score" : 0.6057692,
      "_source" : {
        "primary_name" : "Joe Schmoe",
        "residence" : {
          "houseNumber" : "123",
          "road" : "Main St",
          "city" : "Boston",
          "state" : "Massachusetts",
          "postCode" : "02110"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

The address match score is a measure of how similar the addresses are. Similar addresses have a stronger match and their address match score is closer to 1.

The address can be structured as a string for queries. The address structure for the query is independent of the format of the address in the original document. A string can be used in the query regardless of whether the indexed address was formatted with fields or as a string.

Base Query. The base query constructed with an address string.

curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/rni-test/_search' -H'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{
  "query" : {
    "match" : {"residence" : "Main, MA"}
  }
}'

RNI Rescore with Addresses. The rescore query with an address string.

curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/rni-test/_search' -H'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{
  "query" : {
     "match" : { "residence" : "Main, MA" }},
   "rescore" : {
     "query" : {
       "rescore_query" : {
         "function_score" : {
           "address_score" : {
             "field" : "residence",
             "query_address" : "Main, MA"
         }
       }
     },
     "query_weight" : 0.0,
     "rescore_query_weight" : 1.0
     }
   }
}'

The response displayed here returns the address as a string because the indexed document used in this example represented the address as strings. The response will return the address in the same format as the indexed document. The format of the query does not have to match the format of the indexed documents.

"hits" : {
    "total" : {
      "value" : 1,
      "relation" : "eq"
    },
    "max_score" : 0.4552421,
    "hits" : [
      {
        "_index" : "rni-test",
        "_type" : "_doc",
        "_id" : "1",
        "_score" : 0.4552421,
        "_source" : {
          "primary_name" : "Joe Schmoe",
          "residence" : "123 Main St, Boston, Massachusetts, 02110"
        }
      }
    ]
  }

The address match score is a measure of how similar the addresses are. Similar addresses have a stronger match and their address match score is closer to 1.

RNI includes a customized RNI rescorer query parameter, rni_query, which utilizes RNI advanced features. The RNI custom rescorer uses the parameters above as well as the following parameters to determine the number of documents that will be rescored. Rescoring fewer documents increases speed, but can be at the cost of accuracy if the best documents are not passed to the rescorer.

In the following example, pairwise matching is performed on the top 200 names returned by the base query.

Example with the Advanced Rescorer

curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/rni-test/_search' -H'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{
    "query" : {
        "match" : {
            "primary_name" : "{\"data\" : \"Jo Shmoe\", \"entityType\" : \"PERSON\"}" 
        }
    },
    "rescore" : {
        "window_size" : 200,
        "rni_query" : {
            "rescore_query" : {
                "rni_function_score" : {
                    "name_score" : {
                        "field" : "primary_name",
                        "query_name" : {"data" : "Jo Shmoe", "entityType":"PERSON"},
                        "score_to_rescore_restriction": 1.0,
                        "window_size_allowance": 0.5
                    }
                }
            },
            "query_weight" : 0.0,
            "rescore_query_weight" : 1.0
        }
    }
}'