editdistance

Description

Returns the Levenshtein distance between str1 and str2.

Optional argument max_distance specifies a maximum distance to compute. If the computed distance reaches max_distance, the computation is stopped and max_distance is returned. A negative max_distance causes the function to use 0 as the max_distance and return 0. Empty str<> parameters return 0. A null value in either str1 or str2 or both returns null.

Return type

int64

Domain

This is a scalar function (calculates a single output value for a single input row.)

Categories

• String

Usage

editdistance(str1, str2, [ maxDistance ])

Argument	Type	Optional	Repeatable	Restrictions
str1	string	no	no	none
str2	string	no	no	none
maxDistance	int64	yes	no	none

Examples

filter editdistance(name, last_name, 3) > 2

Filter rows whose name and last_name columns have an edit distance greater than two. Cap the computation at a max_distance of 3, since we don’t care if the actual edit distance is larger.