erf@progress.COM (Eric Feigenson) (02/19/91)
[I hope this is an appropriate group to post this to. If not, I apologize and would appreciate pointers other more appropriate groups. Also, apologies if this topic has already been beaten to death] I am looking for any references to algorithms that compare two strings and return an indication of how similar they are. The context would be two strings from a given language (any language will do, but English would do fine as a start). What "similar" means is itself kind of fuzzy, but something like "Can't find file" and "Cannot find file" would be pretty similar, "Unable to find file" is not as similar and "File not found" is just a teeny bit similar. I know nothing about this subject, so please excuse me if this makes no sense (I'd be enlightened to know if there's a name to this sort of algorithm). The algorithms need not be written in any particular computer language (an English description would be fine). Any and all references and pointers to information in this area will be greeted with open arms. Thanks in advance! -EricF -- Eric R. Feigenson UUCP: mit-eddie!progress!erf Progress Software Corp. Internet: erf@progress.com 5 Oak Park Bedford, MA 01730