levenshtein

is it possible to use levenshtein as part of a mysql select ? i have been experimenting but seem to return no results I would like to be able to select a row based on how near my search text is to the contents i.e if the table is mysql_mail and it's fields are 'to' 'sender' 'subject' and 'body' ( an email structure ) i would like to be able to select sender from mysql_mail where "subject is not too different from what i specify" i thought the following might work but doesn't seem to $result = mysql_query("select sender from mysql_mail where levenshtein(subject,'dear john') <=2"); $echo "The number of Dear John letters is".mysql_affected_rows(); hope i am asking at the correct place BA --