Patent ID: 7415461

Claim:
A method of performing a database search comprising: performing approximate match operations for each of a plurality of attributes for each of a plurality of tuples with respect to a query to create a respective ranking for each of the plurality of attributes; and combining the rankings of the plurality of attributes to provide a ranking score for each of the plurality of tuples; generating data, including a graph, representing a ranking score of each one of the plurality of tuples according to a position of a respective ranking of each one of the plurality of tuples for a first k positions of the ranking; setting, in the graph, a respective ranking score of each of the plurality of tuples according to (n−k) positions to a value that is greater than a largest value of any of the ranking scores for the first k positions of the ranking of the plurality of tuples to complete the generating of the graph, wherein a number of the plurality of tuples is n and k<n; and identifying k top ranked ones of the plurality of tuples based at least in part on the generated data and a modified Hungarian method on the generated graph to determine which k ones of the plurality of tuples produce a lowest summed ranking score for the first k positions.