Abstract: A method and system for retrieving database records, based on a close match to a specified query record, using a distance measure to determine the closeness of the match. The method employs a two-stage process to reduce the number of direct comparisons required. In a first stage, a triangle trie for a single distance measure is pruned to reduce a number of potential matches. The result obtained from pruning the triangle trie is further pruned by employing indexed tables generated using a triangle inequality technique. The members of this small set are then directly compared to the query record to identify matches within at least a specified degree of closeness. Multiple triangle tries can be combined to enable threshold searches over a composite measure. Operations, including Min, Max, Sum, and Weight are combined to produce more complex composite distance functions for use in the process.