Find similar words in array of words

Question

I googled these days but nothing helps. I m not sure now if its possible, so I thought I just aks at stackoverflow.

The situation: The user can input a word or in a inputbox. When he finishes a function check if the word is in the array of words - easy. Now I wanna write a help, if one letter is missing or the letters are written the wrong way, a message should popout.

What are the keys to search for? I tried:

• javascript find string in array
• javascript find similar words in array
• javascript regex similar words
• ... and more

I hope you undestand what i mean, and can give me some hints.

Answer 1

The Levenshtein distance is a metric for computing the distance between similar words. For each changed, shuffled or missing letter the distance is increased. You can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance

and take a reference for the implementation in different languages here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Algorithm_Implementation/Strings/Levenshtein_distance

I hope that helps and thanks for the comment up votes ;)