Levenshtein Distance in VBA [closed] - vba

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I have excel sheet with data which I want to get Levenshtein Distance between them. I already tried to export as text, read in from script (php), run Levenshtein (calculate Levenshtein Distance), save it to excel again.
But I am looking for a way to programatically calculate a Levenshtein Distance in VBA. How would I go about doing so?

Answer 1

Translated from Wikipedia :
Option Explicit
Public Function Levenshtein(s1 As String, s2 As String)
Dim i As Integer
Dim j As Integer
Dim l1 As Integer
Dim l2 As Integer
Dim d() As Integer
Dim min1 As Integer
Dim min2 As Integer
l1 = Len(s1)
l2 = Len(s2)
ReDim d(l1, l2)
For i = 0 To l1
d(i, 0) = i
Next
For j = 0 To l2
d(0, j) = j
Next
For i = 1 To l1
For j = 1 To l2
If Mid(s1, i, 1) = Mid(s2, j, 1) Then
d(i, j) = d(i - 1, j - 1)
Else
min1 = d(i - 1, j) + 1
min2 = d(i, j - 1) + 1
If min2 < min1 Then
min1 = min2
End If
min2 = d(i - 1, j - 1) + 1
If min2 < min1 Then
min1 = min2
End If
d(i, j) = min1
End If
Next
Next
Levenshtein = d(l1, l2)
End Function
?Levenshtein("saturday","sunday")
3

Answer 2

Thanks to smirkingman for the nice code post. Here is an optimized version.
1) Use Asc(Mid$(s1, i, 1) instead. Numerical comparision is generally faster than text.
2) Use Mid$ istead of Mid since the later is the variant ver. and adding $ is string ver.
3) Use application function for min. (personal preference only)
4) Use Long instead of Integers since it's what excel natively uses.
Function Levenshtein(ByVal string1 As String, ByVal string2 As String) As Long
Dim i As Long, j As Long
Dim string1_length As Long
Dim string2_length As Long
Dim distance() As Long
string1_length = Len(string1)
string2_length = Len(string2)
ReDim distance(string1_length, string2_length)
For i = 0 To string1_length
distance(i, 0) = i
Next
For j = 0 To string2_length
distance(0, j) = j
Next
For i = 1 To string1_length
For j = 1 To string2_length
If Asc(Mid$(string1, i, 1)) = Asc(Mid$(string2, j, 1)) Then
distance(i, j) = distance(i - 1, j - 1)
Else
distance(i, j) = Application.WorksheetFunction.Min _
(distance(i - 1, j) + 1, _
distance(i, j - 1) + 1, _
distance(i - 1, j - 1) + 1)
End If
Next
Next
Levenshtein = distance(string1_length, string2_length)
End Function
UPDATE:
For those who want it: I think it's safe to say that most people use Levenshtein distance to calculate fuzzy match percentages. Here's a way to do that, and I have added an optimization that you can specify the min. match % to return (default is 70%+. You enter percentags like "50" or "80", or "0" to run the formula regardless).
The speed boost comes from the fact that the function will check if it's even possible that it's within the percentage you give it by checking the length of the 2 strings. Please note there are some areas where this function can be optimized, but I have kept it at this for the sake of readability. I concatenated the distance in result for proof of functionality, but you can fiddle with it :)
Function FuzzyMatch(ByVal string1 As String, _
ByVal string2 As String, _
Optional min_percentage As Long = 70) As String
Dim i As Long, j As Long
Dim string1_length As Long
Dim string2_length As Long
Dim distance() As Long, result As Long
string1_length = Len(string1)
string2_length = Len(string2)
' Check if not too long
If string1_length >= string2_length * (min_percentage / 100) Then
' Check if not too short
If string1_length <= string2_length * ((200 - min_percentage) / 100) Then
ReDim distance(string1_length, string2_length)
For i = 0 To string1_length: distance(i, 0) = i: Next
For j = 0 To string2_length: distance(0, j) = j: Next
For i = 1 To string1_length
For j = 1 To string2_length
If Asc(Mid$(string1, i, 1)) = Asc(Mid$(string2, j, 1)) Then
distance(i, j) = distance(i - 1, j - 1)
Else
distance(i, j) = Application.WorksheetFunction.Min _
(distance(i - 1, j) + 1, _
distance(i, j - 1) + 1, _
distance(i - 1, j - 1) + 1)
End If
Next
Next
result = distance(string1_length, string2_length) 'The distance
End If
End If
If result <> 0 Then
FuzzyMatch = (CLng((100 - ((result / string1_length) * 100)))) & _
"% (" & result & ")" 'Convert to percentage
Else
FuzzyMatch = "Not a match"
End If
End Function

Answer 3

Use a byte array for 17x speed gain
Option Explicit
Public Declare Function GetTickCount Lib "kernel32" () As Long
Sub test()
Dim s1 As String, s2 As String, lTime As Long, i As Long
s1 = Space(100)
s2 = String(100, "a")
lTime = GetTickCount
For i = 1 To 100
LevenshteinStrings s1, s2 ' the original fn from Wikibooks and Stackoverflow
Next
Debug.Print GetTickCount - lTime; " ms" ' 3900 ms for all diff
lTime = GetTickCount
For i = 1 To 100
Levenshtein s1, s2
Next
Debug.Print GetTickCount - lTime; " ms" ' 234 ms
End Sub
'Option Base 0 assumed
'POB: fn with byte array is 17 times faster
Function Levenshtein(ByVal string1 As String, ByVal string2 As String) As Long
Dim i As Long, j As Long, bs1() As Byte, bs2() As Byte
Dim string1_length As Long
Dim string2_length As Long
Dim distance() As Long
Dim min1 As Long, min2 As Long, min3 As Long
string1_length = Len(string1)
string2_length = Len(string2)
ReDim distance(string1_length, string2_length)
bs1 = string1
bs2 = string2
For i = 0 To string1_length
distance(i, 0) = i
Next
For j = 0 To string2_length
distance(0, j) = j
Next
For i = 1 To string1_length
For j = 1 To string2_length
'slow way: If Mid$(string1, i, 1) = Mid$(string2, j, 1) Then
If bs1((i - 1) * 2) = bs2((j - 1) * 2) Then ' *2 because Unicode every 2nd byte is 0
distance(i, j) = distance(i - 1, j - 1)
Else
'distance(i, j) = Application.WorksheetFunction.Min _
(distance(i - 1, j) + 1, _
distance(i, j - 1) + 1, _
distance(i - 1, j - 1) + 1)
' spell it out, 50 times faster than worksheetfunction.min
min1 = distance(i - 1, j) + 1
min2 = distance(i, j - 1) + 1
min3 = distance(i - 1, j - 1) + 1
If min1 <= min2 And min1 <= min3 Then
distance(i, j) = min1
ElseIf min2 <= min1 And min2 <= min3 Then
distance(i, j) = min2
Else
distance(i, j) = min3
End If
End If
Next
Next
Levenshtein = distance(string1_length, string2_length)
End Function

Answer 4

I think it got even faster... Didn't do much other than improve previous code for speed and results as %
' Levenshtein3 tweaked for UTLIMATE speed and CORRECT results
' Solution based on Longs
' Intermediate arrays holding Asc()make difference
' even Fixed length Arrays have impact on speed (small indeed)
' Levenshtein version 3 will return correct percentage
'
Function Levenshtein3(ByVal string1 As String, ByVal string2 As String) As Long
Dim i As Long, j As Long, string1_length As Long, string2_length As Long
Dim distance(0 To 60, 0 To 50) As Long, smStr1(1 To 60) As Long, smStr2(1 To 50) As Long
Dim min1 As Long, min2 As Long, min3 As Long, minmin As Long, MaxL As Long
string1_length = Len(string1): string2_length = Len(string2)
distance(0, 0) = 0
For i = 1 To string1_length: distance(i, 0) = i: smStr1(i) = Asc(LCase(Mid$(string1, i, 1))): Next
For j = 1 To string2_length: distance(0, j) = j: smStr2(j) = Asc(LCase(Mid$(string2, j, 1))): Next
For i = 1 To string1_length
For j = 1 To string2_length
If smStr1(i) = smStr2(j) Then
distance(i, j) = distance(i - 1, j - 1)
Else
min1 = distance(i - 1, j) + 1
min2 = distance(i, j - 1) + 1
min3 = distance(i - 1, j - 1) + 1
If min2 < min1 Then
If min2 < min3 Then minmin = min2 Else minmin = min3
Else
If min1 < min3 Then minmin = min1 Else minmin = min3
End If
distance(i, j) = minmin
End If
Next
Next
' Levenshtein3 will properly return a percent match (100%=exact) based on similarities and Lengths etc...
MaxL = string1_length: If string2_length > MaxL Then MaxL = string2_length
Levenshtein3 = 100 - CLng((distance(string1_length, string2_length) * 100) / MaxL)
End Function