The Levenshtein distance between two strings is the minimum number of operations needed to transform one string into the other, where an operation may be insertion, deletion or substitution of one character.
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Levenshtein distance
-- from the Artful Common Queries page
-- http://www.artfulsoftware.com/infotree/qrytip.php?id=552
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- The Levenshtein distance between two strings is the minimum number of
-- operations needed to transform one string into the other, where an operation
-- may be insertion, deletion or substitution of one character.
CREATE FUNCTION levenshtein( s1 VARCHAR(255), s2 VARCHAR(255) )
RETURNS INT
DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN
DECLARE s1_len, s2_len, i, j, c, c_temp, cost INT;
DECLARE s1_char CHAR;
-- max strlen=255
DECLARE cv0, cv1 VARBINARY(256);
SET s1_len = CHAR_LENGTH(s1), s2_len = CHAR_LENGTH(s2), cv1 = 0x00, j = 1, i = 1, c = 0;
IF s1 = s2 THEN
RETURN 0;
ELSEIF s1_len = 0 THEN
RETURN s2_len;
ELSEIF s2_len = 0 THEN
RETURN s1_len;
ELSE
WHILE j <= s2_len DO
SET cv1 = CONCAT(cv1, UNHEX(HEX(j))), j = j + 1;
END WHILE;
WHILE i <= s1_len DO
SET s1_char = SUBSTRING(s1, i, 1), c = i, cv0 = UNHEX(HEX(i)), j = 1;
WHILE j <= s2_len DO
SET c = c + 1;
IF s1_char = SUBSTRING(s2, j, 1) THEN
SET cost = 0; ELSE SET cost = 1;
END IF;
SET c_temp = CONV(HEX(SUBSTRING(cv1, j, 1)), 16, 10) + cost;
IF c > c_temp THEN SET c = c_temp; END IF;
SET c_temp = CONV(HEX(SUBSTRING(cv1, j+1, 1)), 16, 10) + 1;
IF c > c_temp THEN
SET c = c_temp;
END IF;
SET cv0 = CONCAT(cv0, UNHEX(HEX(c))), j = j + 1;
END WHILE;
SET cv1 = cv0, i = i + 1;
END WHILE;
END IF;
RETURN c;
END;
-- Helper function:
CREATE FUNCTION levenshtein_ratio( s1 VARCHAR(255), s2 VARCHAR(255) )
RETURNS INT
DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN
DECLARE s1_len, s2_len, max_len INT;
SET s1_len = LENGTH(s1), s2_len = LENGTH(s2);
IF s1_len > s2_len THEN
SET max_len = s1_len;
ELSE
SET max_len = s2_len;
END IF;
RETURN ROUND((1 - LEVENSHTEIN(s1, s2) / max_len) * 100);
END;