CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javastring
Jaqen K'uba
Jaqen K'uba

Reputation: 289

Difference between Strings

Is there a method to compare two String values like .compareTo but that returns the number of letters that aren't the same?

Example:

"SomeString".anotherCompareTo("SomeStrng") -> 1
"SomeString".anotherCompareTo("SmeStrng") -> 2
"SomeString".anotherCompareTo("SomeStrong") -> 1

I can't find anything. I tried to convert it to charArrays and write a method myself but failed. If this is not possible, maybe there's a method that compares two strings with the same length that returns the number of "mistakes"?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 109

Answers (2)

Shar1er80
Shar1er80

Reputation: 9041

Java's String.replaceAll() seems to do what you're wanting. The first parameter being a regex pattern, so you're asking to replace all characters in the pattern with an empty string leaving the characters that don't match the pattern.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String s1 = "SomeString";
    String s2 = "SomeStrng";
    String s3 = "SmeStrng";
    String s4 = "SomeStrong";

    String result = s1.replaceAll("[" + s2 + "]", "");
    System.out.println(result + ": " + result.length());

    result = s1.replaceAll("[" + s3 + "]", "");
    System.out.println(result + ": " + result.length());

    result = s1.replaceAll("[" + s4 + "]", "");
    System.out.println(result + ": " + result.length());
}

Results:

i: 1
oi: 2
i: 1

Upvotes: 1

Amir Afghani
Amir Afghani

Reputation: 38531

Apache Commons has a method to diff Strings

StringUtils.difference(String str1, String str2)

that you can use to create a method that returns the number of differences very easily.

Edit:

Infact it already exists:

StringUtils.getLevenshteinDistance(String str1, String str2)

Upvotes: 5

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