String::Approx 3.26

String::Approx is a Perl module for approximate matching (fuzzy matching).

SYNOPSIS

 use String::Approx 'amatch';

 print if amatch("foobar");

 my @matches = amatch("xyzzy", @inputs);

 my @catches = amatch("plugh", ['2'], @inputs);

String::Approx lets you match and substitute strings approximately. With this you can emulate errors: typing errorrs, speling errors, closely related vocabularies (colour color), genetic mutations (GAG ACT), abbreviations (McScot, MacScot).

NOTE: String::Approx suits the task of string matching, not string comparison, and it works for strings, not for text.

If you want to compare strings for similarity, you probably just want the Levenshtein edit distance (explained below), the Text::Levenshtein and Text::LevenshteinXS modules in CPAN. See also Text::WagnerFischer and Text::PhraseDistance. (There are functions for this in String::Approx, e.g. adist(), but their results sometimes differ from the bare Levenshtein et al.)

If you want to compare things like text or source code, consisting of words or tokens and phrases and sentences, or expressions and statements, you should probably use some other tool than String::Approx, like for example the standard UNIX diff(1) tool, or the Algorithm::Diff module from CPAN.


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Requirements:

· Perl