Value Comparison

This setting defines the update algorithm for Values after editing. The mode names are self-explanatory.

Mode
Substring Match
Exact Match

Saving or updating Values happens when the single-line editor is closed, unless canceled with the Esc key.
At that moment, the edited sample is searched among all Values of the given Attribute and replaced with the new, edited version.

By default, all occurrences of the edited sample (substring) within the Value (string) are found and replaced.

For example, consider these entries:

MP4/AVI, MP4-MPEG4/MP4-MPG/VOB, MP4/AVI/MKV, MP4/AVI/MKV/VOB

After replacing MP4 with MP3, you get:

MP3/AVI, MP3-MPEG4/MP3-MPG/VOB, MP3/AVI/MKV, MP3/AVI/MKV/VOB

In other words, all occurrences of MP4 were updated to MP3.

Now, consider a case where this behavior is not acceptable.
Suppose an Attribute has the following Values (Templates):

50, 50-100, 50/500/500-5000, 500

After replacing 50 with 50g, the result is unexpected:

50g, 50g-100, 50g/50g0/50g0-50g00, 50g0

Even though this is a special case, it can be accounted for.
To do this, enable the Exact Match setting. In that mode, the result will be correct:

50g, 50-100, 50g/500/500-5000, 500

Difference Between Editing Templates and Values

info

The setting described above applies to editing Values.

Templates are always updated using an exact match between the edited sample and the full Template.

Impact on Product Selection

This setting also affects how products are filtered by a specific Attribute Value.

For example, in Substring Match mode, clicking on Attribute Value 20
will show products with Values like 20, 120, 200.

In Exact Match mode, clicking on 20 will only show products with that exact Value.

Impact on Deleting Values

This setting also affects deleting values.

Suppose there are products where the Attribute Test Attribute 3.1 has the Value test value 3.2.1.

In Exact Match mode, only Attributes with the exact Value test value 3.2.1 will be deleted.
In Substring Match mode, those with Values like test value 3.2.1/test value 3.2.2 will be deleted too.

Impact of Units of Measurement

All functions that use comparison take into account the possible presence of units of measurement in the content.

Units are effectively masked so they don’t affect the comparison result.
This is true for cases where the compared elements contain known units from the unit_description table.

This behavior applies to functions like split, merge, and replace.