Python/strings/levenshtein_distance.py
2018-10-19 17:14:25 -05:00

79 lines
2.3 KiB
Python

"""
This is a Python implementation of the levenshtein distance.
Levenshtein distance is a string metric for measuring the
difference between two sequences.
For doctests run following command:
python -m doctest -v levenshtein-distance.py
or
python3 -m doctest -v levenshtein-distance.py
For manual testing run:
python levenshtein-distance.py
"""
def levenshtein_distance(first_word, second_word):
"""Implementation of the levenshtein distance in Python.
:param first_word: the first word to measure the difference.
:param second_word: the second word to measure the difference.
:return: the levenshtein distance between the two words.
Examples:
>>> levenshtein_distance("planet", "planetary")
3
>>> levenshtein_distance("", "test")
4
>>> levenshtein_distance("book", "back")
2
>>> levenshtein_distance("book", "book")
0
>>> levenshtein_distance("test", "")
4
>>> levenshtein_distance("", "")
0
>>> levenshtein_distance("orchestration", "container")
10
"""
# The longer word should come first
if len(first_word) < len(second_word):
return levenshtein_distance(second_word, first_word)
if len(second_word) == 0:
return len(first_word)
previous_row = range(len(second_word) + 1)
for i, c1 in enumerate(first_word):
current_row = [i + 1]
for j, c2 in enumerate(second_word):
# Calculate insertions, deletions and substitutions
insertions = previous_row[j + 1] + 1
deletions = current_row[j] + 1
substitutions = previous_row[j] + (c1 != c2)
# Get the minimum to append to the current row
current_row.append(min(insertions, deletions, substitutions))
# Store the previous row
previous_row = current_row
# Returns the last element (distance)
return previous_row[-1]
if __name__ == '__main__':
try:
raw_input # Python 2
except NameError:
raw_input = input # Python 3
first_word = raw_input('Enter the first word:\n').strip()
second_word = raw_input('Enter the second word:\n').strip()
result = levenshtein_distance(first_word, second_word)
print('Levenshtein distance between {} and {} is {}'.format(
first_word, second_word, result))