Get Levenshtein Distance

getLevenshteinDistance

The getLevenshteinDistance function computes the Levenshtein distance between two strings, which is a measure of the difference between them based on the number of insertions, deletions, and substitutions required to transform one string into the other.

Function Signature

getLevenshteinDistance (str1: string, str2: string): number;

Parameters

str1: First string to compare.
str2: Second string to compare.

Return Value

Returns the Levenshtein distance between the two strings.

Example Usage

import { getLevenshteinDistance } from 'nhb-toolbox';

const distance = getLevenshteinDistance('kitten', 'sitting');
console.log(distance); // Output: 3

Notes

The Levenshtein distance is the minimum number of single-character edits (insertions, deletions, or substitutions) required to change one string into the other.
This implementation is space optimized, using only O(min(len(str1), len(str2))) space by keeping only the current and previous rows of the distance matrix.
Works case-sensitively, so "kitten" and "Kitten" will have a distance of 1.

Aliases

levenshteinDistance: Alias for getLevenshteinDistance.

Conclusion

The getLevenshteinDistance function is essential for comparing two strings in a variety of contexts where similarity measurement is needed. It's an efficient and widely used method for string comparison, offering a quantitative measure of their difference.