C# - Compare String Similarity

Question

What is the best way to compare two strings to see how similar they are?

Examples:

My String My String With Extra Words 

Or

My String My Slightly Different String 

What I am looking for is to determine how similar the first and second string in each pair is. I would like to score the comparison and if the strings are similar enough, I would consider them a matching pair.

Is there a good way to do this in C#?

Answer 1

static class LevenshteinDistance {     public static int Compute(string s, string t)     {         if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(s))         {             if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(t))                 return 0;             return t.Length;         }          if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(t))         {             return s.Length;         }          int n = s.Length;         int m = t.Length;         int[,] d = new int[n + 1, m + 1];          // initialize the top and right of the table to 0, 1, 2, ...         for (int i = 0; i <= n; d[i, 0] = i++);         for (int j = 1; j <= m; d[0, j] = j++);          for (int i = 1; i <= n; i++)         {             for (int j = 1; j <= m; j++)             {                 int cost = (t[j - 1] == s[i - 1]) ? 0 : 1;                 int min1 = d[i - 1, j] + 1;                 int min2 = d[i, j - 1] + 1;                 int min3 = d[i - 1, j - 1] + cost;                 d[i, j] = Math.Min(Math.Min(min1, min2), min3);             }         }         return d[n, m];     } }