Calculation of distance between strings

 Function strdist(r,b,krk,cas) is intended for calculation of distance
between strings.It computes Levenshtein and editor distances with use of
Vagner-Fisher algorithm. Levenshtein distance is the minimal quantity of
character substitutions, deletions and insertions for transformation of
string r into string b. An editor distance is computed as Levenstein
distance with substitutions weight of 2.

Contents

• DESCRIPTION
• EXAMPLE

DESCRIPTION

d=strdist(r) computes numel(r); d=strdist(r,b) computes Levenshtein distance between r and b. If b is empty string then d=numel(r); d=strdist(r,b,krk) computes both Levenshtein and editor distance when krk=2. d=strdist(r,b,krk,cas) computes a distance in accordance with krk and cas.If cas>0 then case is ignored.

EXAMPLE

d1 - Levenstein distance, d2 - Levenstein and editor distances

d1=strdist('statistics','mathematics')
d2=strdist('statistics','mathematics',2)

d1 =
     6
d2 =
     6     9

How to count substitutions:

disp('Quantity of substitutions:')
disp(diff(d2))

Quantity of substitutions:
     3

Case sensitive:

strdist('MATLAB','MathWorks',2)

ans =
     8    13

Case non-sensitive:

strdist('MATLAB','MathWorks',2,1)

ans =
     6     9

Published with MATLAB® 7.5