What does "Levenshtein Distance" mean?
Table of Contents
Levenshtein Distance is a way to measure how different two strings of text are. It counts the minimum number of changes needed to turn one string into another. The changes can be inserting a letter, removing a letter, or changing one letter into another.
Importance
This measure is useful in various areas, such as spell checking, DNA sequencing, and natural language processing. It helps in understanding how similar or different two pieces of text are.
Example
For instance, if we want to change the word "cat" to "hat," we only need to change one letter. Therefore, the Levenshtein Distance between "cat" and "hat" is 1. If we need to change "kitten" to "sitting," we would count the changes needed and find that the distance is 3.
Applications
Levenshtein Distance helps computers understand and compare words in tasks like grammar checking, where it can quickly find and suggest corrections for mistakes in text. It plays a key role in making text input easier and more accurate for users.