com.swabunga.spell.engine

Class EditDistance

java.lang.Object

com.swabunga.spell.engine.EditDistance

public class EditDistance
extends java.lang.Object

This class is based on Levenshtein Distance algorithms, and it calculates how similar two words are. If the words are identical, then the distance is 0. The more that the words have in common, the lower the distance value. The distance value is based on how many operations it takes to get from one word to the other. Possible operations are swapping characters, adding a character, deleting a character, and substituting a character. The resulting distance is the sum of these operations weighted by their cost, which can be set in the Configuration object. When there are multiple ways to convert one word into the other, the lowest cost distance is returned.
Another way to think about this: what are the cheapest operations that would have to be done on the "original" word to end up with the "similar" word? Each operation has a cost, and these are added up to get the distance.

See Also:

Configuration.COST_REMOVE_CHAR, Configuration.COST_INSERT_CHAR, Configuration.COST_SUBST_CHARS, Configuration.COST_SWAP_CHARS

Field Summary

Fields

Modifier and Type	Field and Description
static Configuration	config Fetches the spell engine configuration properties.

Constructor Summary

Constructors

Constructor and Description
EditDistance()

Method Summary

Methods

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
static int	getDistance(java.lang.String word, java.lang.String similar) Evaluates the distance between two words.
static int	getDistance(java.lang.String word, java.lang.String similar, int[][] matrix) Evaluates the distance between two words.
static void	main(java.lang.String[] args) For testing edit distances

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Field Detail

config

public static Configuration config

Fetches the spell engine configuration properties.

Constructor Detail

EditDistance

public EditDistance()

Method Detail

getDistance

public static final int getDistance(java.lang.String word,
              java.lang.String similar)

Evaluates the distance between two words.

Parameters:

word - One word to evaluates

similar - The other word to evaluates

Returns:

a number representing how easy or complex it is to transform on word into a similar one.

getDistance

public static final int getDistance(java.lang.String word,
              java.lang.String similar,
              int[][] matrix)

Evaluates the distance between two words.

Parameters:

word - One word to evaluates

similar - The other word to evaluates

Returns:

a number representing how easy or complex it is to transform on word into a similar one.

main

public static void main(java.lang.String[] args)
                 throws java.lang.Exception

For testing edit distances

Parameters:

args - an array of two strings we want to evaluate their distances.

Throws:

java.lang.Exception - when problems occurs during reading args.