# norm, normfast

## norm(source)

Normalize a string by:

1. trimming white space from each end
2. changing all multiple internal white space into a single space
3. removing all punctuation
4. lower casing all other characters.

### normfast(source)

Normalize a string by:

1. removing all characters except letters and numbers (including all whitespace)
2. lowercasing all characters

## Arguments

Argument | Data Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
Source | String | String to normalize

## Returns

The normalized string.

## Description

This function is used to convert a string to a more common format. The most common use for it is when matching between a source and target record; particularly when using standard matching and fuzzy matching.

For example, if you are using the Company name field to match with the target, you would find that "InaPlex" does not match "Inaplex" - note the difference in capitalization of the "P".

Using the norm() function would trim white space and map the string to lower case, so you would get a match.

normfast() achieves a similar result but removes all white space. Because it is not testing for white space characters and equalizing internal white space, it is considerably faster.

## Example

Example | Returns | Description
--- | --- | ---
norm("My LONG Company") | "my long company" | Normalize the string to equalize internal spaces and lower case it.
normfast("My LONG'123, Company") | "mylong123company" | Normalize the string by removing all white space and punctuation, and lower casing

## See Also

normcomp()