Calculate Levenshtein distance

Place text into the “Input data left” window and the “Input data right” window, and you will see the value in the Output window.

Used in information theory and computer science applications, this distance – also called the “edit distance” - measures the different between two sequences. Basically, it refers to the difference in two words where you look at the number of edits – insertion, deletion, substitution – you need to make, at a minimum, to change one word to another.

Named after Vladimir Levenshtein, the term was developed in the 1960’s. To go from CA to ABC the distance would be 2. The first is to go from CA to AC. The second is to go from AC to ABC.

Applications could include where the minimum number of differences is important. Spell checkers is one possible application. Another would be optical character recognition application. Translations based on translation memory – for translations involving natural languages – are another application. Uses are also possible for string searches when looking at records. When comparing a large list of words, this distance can be useful.

Here is an example.
Input data left
This is input data left.
Input data right
This is input data right.
Output:
5