string difference and similarity

[Jeff]

I've got a series of data like this:

Long Sleeve White P/C Sm 32/33
Long Sleeve White P/C Med 32/33
....

What I'd like to do is extract the differences and the similarity. In
this case:

similar: Long Sleeve White P/C

difference: Med 32/33
If I were writing a function, I'd probably compare increasingly
longer substrings, but I'm thinking that php probably already has
functions for that. What is that?

I found "xdiff_string_d iff", but I don't really understand it or how I
would get the common text.

Jeff

[Jessica Griego]

"Jeff" <jeff@spam_me_n ot.comwrote in message
news:Qd******** *************** *******@earthli nk.com...

I've got a series of data like this:

Long Sleeve White P/C Sm 32/33
Long Sleeve White P/C Med 32/33
...

What I'd like to do is extract the differences and the similarity. In
this case:

similar: Long Sleeve White P/C

difference: Med 32/33
If I were writing a function, I'd probably compare increasingly longer
substrings, but I'm thinking that php probably already has functions for
that. What is that?

I found "xdiff_string_d iff", but I don't really understand it or how I
would get the common text.

I haven't looked into that formula yet. One way to think about it as an
alternative would be to turn the strings into arrays and use either
array_intersect , array_diff, or loop through one of the arrays checking to
see if that value is in_array of the second. I'm not sure how your strings
are created, so it's hard to tell what would be appropriate...s ince:

I'm a crochety old man.

is different than

Old man, I'm crochety.

and not just by two characters. :^)

[Curtis]

On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:39:42 -0500, jeff@spam_me_no t.com wrote:

I've got a series of data like this:

Long Sleeve White P/C Sm 32/33
Long Sleeve White P/C Med 32/33
...

What I'd like to do is extract the differences and the similarity. In
this case:

similar: Long Sleeve White P/C

difference: Med 32/33
If I were writing a function, I'd probably compare increasingly
longer substrings, but I'm thinking that php probably already has
functions for that. What is that?

I found "xdiff_string_d iff", but I don't really understand it or how I
would get the common text.

Jeff

If your string comparison needs are all as simple as your example,
using strspn() could probably suit your needs. Perhaps something
like:

<?php
$s1 = 'Long Sleeve White P/C Sm 32/33';
$s2 = 'Long Sleeve White P/C Med 32/33';

$matchlen = strspn($s1, $s2);

// remove 1st non-matching char
$same = substr($s1, 0, $matchlen - 1);

// include 1st non-matching char
$diff = substr($s2, $matchlen - 1);

printf("Same: [%s]\nDiff: [%s]", $same, $diff);
?>

strspn() will give us the length of the initial matching segment in
$s1. When writing a function, I'd check to see if the strings are
equal first, and preemptively return the string or whatever suits
your needs.

If you need a more complex algorithm, see the manual:

<URL:http://php.net/manual/en/function.levens htein.php>
--
Curtis
$email = str_replace('si g.invalid', 'gmail.com', $from);

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22=C1lvaro_G=2E_Vicario=22?=]

Jeff escribió:

I've got a series of data like this:

Long Sleeve White P/C Sm 32/33
Long Sleeve White P/C Med 32/33
...

What I'd like to do is extract the differences and the similarity. In
this case:

similar: Long Sleeve White P/C

difference: Med 32/33

The documentation looks slightly scarce but this package features inline
diffs:

http://pear.php.net/package/Text_Diff


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