Fuzzy Matching with fozziejoin
Author: Jon Downs
Date: 2026-03-04

# Fuzzy Matching with `fozziejoin`

#### Jon Downs

#### 2026-03-04

### Introduction

Fuzzy matching is a powerful technique for joining datasets that contain noisy or inconsistent fields, such as names with typos, small differences in date or numeric value, or overlapping intervals. R users may be familiar with the `fuzzyjoin` package for such tasks. `fozziejoin` is a performance-minded alternative that supports fast, flexible fuzzy joins across multiple data types. While it is not a drop-in replacement for `fuzzyjoin`, we hope that the package feels familiar to longtime users.

In this vignette, we demonstrate fuzzy joins using the following `fozziejoin` utilities:

- `fozzie_string_join`
- `fozzie_difference_join`
- `fozzie_distance_join`
- `fozzie_interval_join`
- `fozzie_temporal_join`
- `fozzie_temporal_interval_join`

The goal is to broadly introduce the package to new users and showcase its capabilities.

### String Distance joins

To demonstrate string matching, we use the `babynames` dataset. We randomly sample 10 names and introduce a single-character mutation to simulate noisy input.

    library(babynames)
    library(fozziejoin)
    library(tibble)

    # Seed for reproducibility
    set.seed(1337)

    # Restrict to names from years 2000 or later
    babynames <- babynames[babynames$year >= 2000, ]

    # Sample rows from babynames dataset
    sample_df <- babynames[sample(nrow(babynames), 10), 'name']

    # Mutate a single character in the 'name' field for sample
    mutate_char <- function(x) {
      if (nchar(x) == 0) return(x)
      pos <- sample(1:nchar(x), 1)
      new_char <- sample(letters, 1)
      substr(x, pos, pos) <- new_char
      return(x)
    }
    sample_df$name <- sapply(sample_df$name, mutate_char)

Next, we attempt to join the modified names back to the original dataset using trigram-based Jaccard similarity. `fozziejoin` supports all the same string distance algorithms as `fuzzyjoin`, though some implementations (`soundex` and `jw`) differ slightly.

    fozzie <- fozzie_string_join(
        babynames, sample_df, how='inner', method='jaccard', q=3,
        by = c('name')
    )
    print(head(fozzie))

    ## # A tibble: 6 × 6
    ##    year sex   name.x       n    prop name.y
    ##   <dbl> <chr> <chr>    <int>   <dbl> <chr>
    ## 1  2000 F     Emily    25953 0.0130  Olunatimilehin
    ## 2  2000 F     Brianna  12878 0.00646 Cairiana
    ## 3  2000 F     Victoria 10923 0.00548 Cairiana
    ## 4  2000 F     Haley     9070 0.00455 Taleka
    ## 5  2000 F     Hailey    7831 0.00393 Olunatimilehin
    ## 6  2000 F     Maria     6852 0.00343 Cairiana

    print(nrow(fozzie))

    ## [1] 79089

Note the return type of the object is `tibble` in this case. If one or both input datasets are a `tibble`, a `tibble` is returned. Otherwise, a base `data.frame` is returned.

    # If both neither input is `tibble`, `data.frame` is returned.
    fozzie_df <- fozzie_string_join(
        as.data.frame(babynames),
        as.data.frame(sample_df),
        how='inner',
        method='jaccard',
        q=3,
        by = c('name')
    )
    head(fozzie_df)

    ##   year sex   name.x     n       prop         name.y
    ## 1 2000   F    Emily 25953 0.01300980 Olunatimilehin
    ## 2 2000   F  Brianna 12878 0.00645552       Cairiana
    ## 3 2000   F Victoria 10923 0.00547551       Cairiana
    ## 4 2000   F    Haley  9070 0.00454664         Taleka
    ## 5 2000   F   Hailey  7831 0.00392555 Olunatimilehin
    ## 6 2000   F    Maria  6852 0.00343479       Cairiana

### Difference and Distance joins

`fozziejoin` also supports numeric-based fuzzy joins. These are useful for measurements, non-geometric coordinates, or scores.

- Difference joins filter based on the absolute difference between columns, evaluated individually.
- Distance joins use multi-dimensional metrics like `"euclidean"` or `"manhattan"` to evaluate all columns simultaneously.

Most join functions allow you to return the fuzzy matching metric via the `distance_col` argument. When multiple distances are returned, the distance output columns will be named using the pattern `{distance_col}_{left column name}_{right column name}`.

    # Simulate data
    size <- 1000
    df1 <- tibble(
      x = round(runif(size, min = 0, max = 100), 2),
      y = round(runif(size, min = 0, max = 100), 2)
    )
    df2 <- tibble(
      x = round(runif(size, min = 0, max = 100), 2),
      y = round(runif(size, min = 0, max = 100), 2)
    )

    # Absolute difference join (per column)
    diff_join <- fozzie_difference_join(
      df1, df2, max_distance=1, distance_col = 'diff'
    )

    ## Joining by: c("x", "y")

    print(head(diff_join))

    ## # A tibble: 6 × 6
    ##     x.x   y.x   x.y   y.y diff_x_x diff_y_y
    ##   <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>    <dbl>    <dbl>
    ## 1 25.0   17.6 25.0   17.7  0          0.150
    ## 2  3.51  79.3  3.51  78.6  0          0.680
    ## 3 75.7   50   75.7   50.5  0          0.460
    ## 4 94.4   32.2 94.4   32.7  0.01000    0.440
    ## 5 22.6   25.8 22.6   26.2  0.01000    0.41
    ## 6 60.8   28.0 60.8   28.3  0.01000    0.350

    # Manhattan distance join (across all columns)
    dist_join <- fozzie_distance_join(
      df1, df2, method='manhattan', max_distance=1, distance_col='dist'
    )

    ## Joining by: c("x", "y")

    print(head(dist_join))

    ## # A tibble: 6 × 5
    ##     x.x   y.x   x.y   y.y  dist
    ##   <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
    ## 1  13.2  62.2  13.4  61.8 0.68
    ## 2  55.1  89.7  54.6  89.2 0.980
    ## 3  29.8  20.5  30.2  20.9 0.780
    ## 4  70.0  65.1  70.7  65.2 0.810
    ## 5  98.6  72.8  99.2  73.0 0.830
    ## 6   3.8  87.6   3.2  87.8 0.74

### Interval Joins

Interval joins allow you to match records based on overlapping ranges — useful for genomic intervals, time windows, or numeric spans. `fozziejoin` supports flexible interval matching with control over overlap behavior and precision.

In this example, we simulate two datasets with randomly generated intervals and use `fozzie_interval_join()` to find overlapping pairs.

    size <- 1000

    # Simulate left data
    starts1 <- runif(size, min = 0, max = 500)
    ends1 <- starts1 + runif(size, min = 0, max = 10)
    df1 <- tibble(start = starts1, end = ends1)

    # Simulate right data
    starts2 <- runif(size, min = 0, max = 500)
    ends2 <- starts2 + runif(size, min = 0, max = 10)
    df2 <- tibble(start = starts2, end = ends2)

    # Perform interval join using real-valued ranges
    real_olaps <- fozzie_interval_join(
      df1, df2,
      by = c(start = "start", end = "end"),
      how = "inner",
      overlap_type = "any",
      maxgap = 0,
      minoverlap = 0,
      interval_mode = "real"
    )

#### Interval Modes Explained

- “integer” mode is designed for discrete, integer-based intervals — similar to how the `IRanges` package handles genomic ranges. It assumes endpoints are whole numbers and uses inclusive logic. As an example, [1, 9] would match to [10, 11], as these ranges are touching in integer space.

- “real” mode supports continuous numeric ranges — ideal for floating-point values like scores or measurements. This mode behaves more like `foverlaps()` from `data.table`, allowing precise control over overlap boundaries.

If the user does not specify `interval_mode`, a mode is chosen automatically based on the input data. If all values are `integer`, then integer mode is used. Otherwise, `real` mode is used.

### Temporal joins

Temporal joins are also available via `fozzie_temporal_join` and `fozzie_temporal_interval_join`. Under the hood, they are an extension of the difference and interval joins. While these functions are designed to work with both `POSIX` timestamps and `Date` types, users may not mix and match. All join columns must be of the same type.

For `POSIX` timestamps, users may specify distance by days, hours, minutes, seconds, ms, ns, or us).

    df1 <- data.frame(time = as.POSIXct(c(
      "2023-01-01 12:00:00", "2023-01-01 13:00:00"
    )))
    df2 <- data.frame(time = as.POSIXct(c(
      "2023-01-01 12:00:05", "2023-01-01 14:00:00"
    )))

    result <- fozzie_temporal_inner_join(
      df1, df2, by = c("time"), max_distance = 10, unit = "seconds"
    )
    print(head(result))

    ##                time.x              time.y
    ## 1 2023-01-01 12:00:00 2023-01-01 12:00:05

For `Date` class objects, the unit must be days. This is the default option.

    # An error results if matching on `Date` with unit other than `days`
    df1$date <- as.Date(df1$time)
    df2$date <- as.Date(df2$time)
    result <- fozzie_temporal_inner_join(
      df1, df2, by = c("date"), max_distance = 10, unit = "seconds"
    )

    ## Error in `fozzie_temporal_join()`:
    ## ! When joining on Date columns, unit must be 'days'.

    # Succeeds
    result <- fozzie_temporal_inner_join(
      df1, df2, by = c("date"), max_distance = 10
    )

`fozzie_temporal_interval_join` uses `interval_mode='real'` in all cases.

    df1 <- data.frame(
      start = as.Date(c("2023-01-01", "2023-01-05")),
      end = as.Date(c("2023-01-03", "2023-01-07"))
    )
    df2 <- data.frame(
      start = as.Date(c("2023-01-02", "2023-01-06")),
      end = as.Date(c("2023-01-04", "2023-01-08"))
    )

    result <- fozzie_temporal_interval_inner_join(
      df1, df2,
      by = c(start = "start", end = "end"),
      overlap_type = "any",
      maxgap = 0,
      minoverlap = 0,
      unit = "days"
    )

    head(result)

    ##      start.x      end.x    start.y      end.y
    ## 1 2023-01-01 2023-01-03 2023-01-02 2023-01-04
    ## 2 2023-01-05 2023-01-07 2023-01-06 2023-01-08

### Summary of `fozziejoin` Join Types

Join Type | Input Type(s) | Matching Logic | Key Options / Notes
--- | --- | --- | ---
`fozzie_string_join` | Character | String similarity (e.g. cosine, hamming) | `method`, `q`, `distance_col`
`fozzie_difference_join` | Numeric | Absolute difference per column | `max_distance`, `distance_col`
`fozzie_distance_join` | Numeric | Euclidean or Manhattan distance | `method`, `max_distance`, `distance_col`
`fozzie_interval_join` | Ranges (start/end) | Overlapping intervals | `overlap_type`, `maxgap`, `minoverlap`, `interval_mode`
`fozzie_temporal_join` | POSIXct / Date | Time difference within unit | `unit`, `max_distance`
`fozzie_temporal_interval_join` | POSIXct / Date ranges | Overlapping time intervals | `unit`, `overlap_type`, `maxgap`, `minoverlap`