RETRIEVAL SYSTEM AND METHOD

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To realize partial match retrieval with high speed, by reducing a processing load of partial match retrieval in a database whose contents of a character string item of a retrieval object are not unique.SOLUTION: A retrieval system (1) performs following steps; extracting contents (character strings) of a character string item which is an object of partial match retrieval from a retrieval object DB (101) as removing duplication; performing the partial match retrieval based on a request from a user against the extracted unique character strings; converting the conditional expression of the partial match retrieval received from the user, to the retrieval conditional expression of exact match retrieval for retrieving only the contents of the character string item acquired as a result of the partial match retrieval; and performing the exact match retrieval against the retrieval object DB (101) based on the converted retrieval conditional expression.