levenshtein-edit-distance

Levenshtein distance (by Vladimir Levenshtein).

Contents

• What is this?
• When should I use this?
• Install
• Use
• API
  • levenshteinEditDistance(value, other[, insensitive])
• CLI
• Types
• Compatibility
• Related
• Contribute
• Security
• License

What is this?

This package exposes a string similarity algorithm.
That means it gets two strings (typically words), and turns it into the minimum
number of single-character edits (insertions, deletions or substitutions)
needed to turn one string into the other.

When should I use this?

You’re probably dealing with natural language, and know you need this, if
you’re here!

Install

This package is ESM only.
In Node.js (version 14.14+, 16.0+), install with npm:

 npm install levenshtein-edit-distance

In Deno with esm.sh:

 import {levenshteinEditDistance} from 'https://esm.sh/levenshtein-edit-distance@3'

In browsers with esm.sh:

 <script type="module">
  import {levenshteinEditDistance} from 'https://esm.sh/levenshtein-edit-distance@3?bundle'
</script>

Use

 import {levenshteinEditDistance} from 'levenshtein-edit-distance'

levenshteinEditDistance('levenshtein', 'levenshtein') // => 0
levenshteinEditDistance('sitting', 'kitten') // => 3
levenshteinEditDistance('gumbo', 'gambol') // => 2
levenshteinEditDistance('saturday', 'sunday') // => 3

// Insensitive to order:
levenshteinEditDistance('aarrgh', 'aargh') === levenshtein('aargh', 'aarrgh') // => true

// Sensitive to ASCII casing by default:
levenshteinEditDistance('DwAyNE', 'DUANE') !== levenshtein('dwayne', 'DuAnE') // => true
// Insensitive:
levenshteinEditDistance('DwAyNE', 'DUANE', true) === levenshtein('dwayne', 'DuAnE', true) // => true

API

This package exports the identifier levenshteinEditDistance.
There is no default export.

levenshteinEditDistance(value, other[, insensitive])

Levenshtein edit distance.

value

Primary value (string, required).

other

Other value (string, required).

insensitive

Compare insensitive to ASCII casing (boolean, default: false).

Returns

Distance between value and other (number).

CLI

 Usage: levenshtein-edit-distance [options] word word

Levenshtein edit distance.

Options:

  -h, --help           output usage information
  -v, --version        output version number
  -i, --insensitive    ignore casing

Usage:

# output distance
$ levenshtein-edit-distance sitting kitten
# 3

# output distance from stdin
$ echo "saturday,sunday" | levenshtein-edit-distance
# 3

Types

This package is fully typed with TypeScript.
It exports no additional types.

Compatibility

This package is at least compatible with all maintained versions of Node.js.
As of now, that is Node.js 14.14+ and 16.0+.
It also works in Deno and modern browsers.

Related

• levenshtein.c
  — C API
• levenshtein
  — C CLI
• levenshtein-rs
  — Rust API
• stemmer
  — porter stemming algorithm
• lancaster-stemmer
  — lancaster stemming algorithm
• double-metaphone
  — double metaphone algorithm
• soundex-code
  — soundex algorithm
• dice-coefficient
  — sørensen–dice coefficient
• syllable
  — syllable count of English words

Contribute

Yes please!
See How to Contribute to Open Source.

Security

This package is safe.

License

MIT © Titus Wormer