We take inspiration from http://blog.notdot.net/2010/07/Damn-Cool-Algorithms-Levenshtein-Automata for the main algorithm and ideas. However some parts are adapted
Due to the existence of several encodings and string representations we abstract over the type of strings. A string is a finite array of characters (8-bits char, unicode runes, etc.) which provides a length operation and a function to access the n-th character.
module type STRING = sig ... endThis data structure is used to represent a list of result that is evaluated only as far as the user wants. If the user only wants a few elements, she doesn't pay for the remaining ones.
In particular, when matching a string against a (big) set of indexed strings, we return a continuation list so that, even if there are many results, only those actually asked for are evaluated.
type 'a klist = unit -> [ `Nil | `Cons of 'a * 'a klist ]val klist_to_list : 'a klist -> 'a listHelper for short lists.
The signature for a given string representation provides 3 main things:
edit_distance function to compute the edit distance between stringsautomaton type that is built from a string s and a maximum distance n, and only accepts the strings s' such that edit_distance s s' <= n.Index module that can be used to map many strings to values, like a regular string map, but for which retrieval is fuzzy (for a given maximal distance).A possible use of the index could be:
open Batteries;;
let words = File.with_file_in "/usr/share/dict/english"
(fun i -> IO.read_all i |> String.nsplit ~by:"\\n");;
let words = List.map (fun s->s,s) words;;
let idx = Levenshtein.Index.of_list words;;
Levenshtein.Index.retrieve ~limit:1 idx "hell" |> Levenshtein.klist_to_list;;module type S = sig ... endinclude S with type char_ = char and type string_ = stringEdition distance between two strings. This satisfies the classical distance axioms: it is always positive, symmetric, and satisfies the formula distance a b + distance b c >= distance a c
An automaton, built from a string s and a limit n, that accepts every string that is at distance at most n from s.
Build an automaton from a string, with a maximal distance limit. The automaton will accept strings whose edit_distance to the parameter is at most limit.
Build an automaton from a list, with a maximal distance limit
match_with a s matches the string s against a, and returns true if the distance from s to the word represented by a is smaller than the limit used to build a
module Index : sig ... endval debug_print : Pervasives.out_channel -> automaton -> unit