world.EditDistance

MUSHclient script function (Method) — introduced in version 3.82

Returns the Levenshtein Edit Distance between two words

Prototype

long EditDistance(BSTR Source, BSTR Target);

Data type meanings

Description

Returns the "edit distance" between two words.

This is intended for use in the spell checker or similar applications, where you need to know how close one word is to another.

The Levenshtein distance between two strings is defined as the minimum number of edits needed to transform one string into the other, with the allowable edit operations being insertion, deletion, or substitution of a single character.

For example, the Levenshtein distance between "kitten" and "sitting" is 3, since the following three edits change one into the other, and there is no way to do it with fewer than three edits:

1. kitten --> sitten (substitution of 's' for 'k')
2. sitten --> sittin (substitution of 'i' for 'e')
3. sittin --> sitting (insert 'g' at the end).

VBscript example

Note EditDistance ("food", "fod")  ' --> 1
Note EditDistance ("food", "fodder")  ' --> 3

Lua example

Note (EditDistance ("food", "fod"))      --> 1
Note (EditDistance ("food", "fodder"))   --> 3

Lua notes

Also available as utils.edit_distance.

Return value

The edit distance between the two numbers.