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--- syntax:functions:distance [2018/03/01 09:24] – dmitry
+++ syntax:functions:distance [2021/08/14 22:02] (current) – [Examples] craigt
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-===== distance(text, text) =====
+====== Distance(text1, text2) ======
+Category:  Text function
-The edit distance between two text strings calculated as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damerau%E2%80%93Levenshtein_distance|Damerau-Levenshtein distance]]. It shows the number of text edits such as character insertion or deletion is needed to produce one text string from another. It's used to measure a degree of variance between two strings. The bigger is the edit distance, the more different the strings are.
+\\
+=====Description=====
+This function returns the edit distance between two text strings calculated as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damerau%E2%80%93Levenshtein_distance|Damerau-Levenshtein distance]].
-^  Example  ^  Result  ^
+This shows the number of text edits, such as character insertions or deletions, that is needed to produce //text2// from //text1//. It is used to measure the degree of variance between two strings. The larger the edit distance, the more different the strings are.
-| distance("cat", "cat")  |  0 |
-| distance("cat", "cut")  |  1 |
+\\
-| distance("cat", "dog")  |  3 |
+=====Use cases====
-| distance("cat", "Scott")  |  3 |
+Rating the similarity between words (fuzzy matching).
+The detection of mistyped words.
+\\
+=====Arguments=====
+^Argument^Type^Description^
+|text1|Text|The "source" string value.|
+|text2|Text|The "destination" string to transform //text1// into .|
+**Return value type:** Number
+\\
+=====Remarks=====
+This function is case sensitive insofar as replacing a lower-case character with the upper-case version, or upper-case with the lower-case version, is considered an edit.
+While numeric values can be entered for either argument, the function handles them as text strings for the calculation of the edit distance.
+\\
+=====Examples=====
+  distance("cat", "cat") //Returns 0  (Strings are the same)
+  distance("cat", "cut") //Returns 1  (Change "a" to "u")
+  distance("cat", "dog") //Returns 3  (Change "c" to "d", "a" to "o", and "t" to "g")
+  distance("cat", "Scott") //Returns 3  (Delete "S" and one of the "t"s, and change "a" to "o")
+  distance("Mary","mary") //Returns 1  (Replace upper-case "M" with lower-case "m")
+  distance(100, 1) //Returns 2  (Remove both "0"s)
+  distance(100, "Bob") //Returns 3  (Replace "1" with "M", replace "0" with "a", and replace "0" with "r")
-Use cases: fuzzy matching, detection of mistyped words.