1. A method for comparing entries with characteristics in an electronic database, wherein the characteristics are capable of being represented by numeric descriptors, said method comprising: assigning to each entry a numeric entry vector, the elements of which comprise descriptors that represent the characteristics in a predetermined order; establishing a query to be compared with the entries; assigning to the query, an original numeric query vector, the elements of which comprise descriptors that represent the characteristics in the predetermined order; specifying, for each element of the original query vector, a numeric weight representing the relative importance of that characteristic to the other characteristics; constructing a weight vector, each element of which is populated with the specified numeric weight that is representative of the characteristic represented in the corresponding element of the original query vector; calculating for each entry in the database a weighted similarity value using the original query vector, the entry vector, and the weight vector; ordering the entries according to their similarity values; and, displaying the ordered entries.