All files / text / closest_string.ts

// Copyright 2018-2025 the Deno authors. MIT license.
// This module is browser compatible.
import { levenshteinDistance } from "./levenshtein_distance.ts";

/** Options for {@linkcode closestString}. */
export interface ClosestStringOptions {
  /**
   * Whether the distance should include case.
   *
   * @default {false}
   */
  caseSensitive?: boolean;
  /**
   * A custom comparison function to use for comparing strings.
   *
   * @param a The first string for comparison.
   * @param b The second string for comparison.
   * @returns The distance between the two strings.
   * @default {levenshteinDistance}
   */
  compareFn?: (a: string, b: string) => number;
}

/**
 * Finds the most similar string from an array of strings.
 *
 * By default, calculates the distance between words using the
 * {@link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance | Levenshtein distance}.
 *
 * @example Usage
 * ```ts
 * import { closestString } from "@std/text/closest-string";
 * import { assertEquals } from "@std/assert";
 *
 * const possibleWords = ["length", "size", "blah", "help"];
 * const suggestion = closestString("hep", possibleWords);
 *
 * assertEquals(suggestion, "help");
 * ```
 *
 * @param givenWord The string to measure distance against
 * @param possibleWords The string-array to pick the closest string from
 * @param options The options for the comparison.
 * @returns The closest string
 */
export function closestString(
  givenWord: string,
  possibleWords: ReadonlyArray<string>,
  options?: ClosestStringOptions,
): string {
  if (possibleWords.length === 0) {
    throw new TypeError(
      "When using closestString(), the possibleWords array must contain at least one word",
    );
  }
  const { caseSensitive, compareFn = levenshteinDistance } = { ...options };

  if (!caseSensitive) {
    givenWord = givenWord.toLowerCase();
  }

  let nearestWord = possibleWords[0]!;
  let closestStringDistance = Infinity;
  for (const each of possibleWords) {
    const distance = caseSensitive
      ? compareFn(givenWord, each)
      : compareFn(givenWord, each.toLowerCase());
    if (distance < closestStringDistance) {
      nearestWord = each;
      closestStringDistance = distance;
    }
  }
  return nearestWord;
}