Like %, string search

Question

Hi all,
I am making a application in which there is string search but i dont know how to find a solution.
For example in sql, there is (like %) expression to find similar words. But in java how can I do that.
For instance word1 = mehmet, word2 = mehemet.
How can i do it?
Thanks...

Answer 1

regerybets wrote:
Hi all,
I am making a application in which there is string search but i dont know how to find a solution.
For example in sql, there is (like %) expression to find similar words. But in java how can I do that.
For instance word1 = mehmet, word2 = mehemet.
How can i do it?
Thanks...Sounds like a job for Levenshtein. Apache has an implementation in their Commons-Lang API:
import org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils;
public class LevenshteinDemo {
    public static final int MINIMUM_LIKE_DISTANCE = 4;
    public static boolean like(String wordA, String wordB) {
        return like(wordA, wordB, MINIMUM_LIKE_DISTANCE);
    public static boolean like(String wordA, String wordB, int permittedDistance) {
        return StringUtils.getLevenshteinDistance(wordA, wordB) <= permittedDistance;
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String a = "mehmet";
        String b = "mehemet";
        String c = "ambulance";
        String d = "meehemeet";
        String e = "mhmt";
        System.out.println(like(a, b));
        System.out.println(like(a, c));
        System.out.println(like(a, d));
        System.out.println(like(a, e));
/* output:
                true
                false
                true
                true
*/Download it here: [http://commons.apache.org/downloads/download_lang.cgi], stick the file commons-lang-2.4.jar in your classpath and the snippet above will compile. Of course, you may want to make permittedDistance variable depending on the size of the input words. Now it will only work for small strings/words, not larger chunks of text.