C++ Program to Implement Wagner and Fisher Algorithm for online String Matching

In this section we will see how to compare two strings using Wagner and Fisher algorithm. Using this algorithm, we can find how many minimum changes are required to match those strings.

This is a dynamic programming approach. Here we measure the Levenshtein distance from two strings.

Input: Two strings “Support” & “Suppose”
Output: Minimum number of required changes: 2

Algorithm

Wagnwe_Fisher(str1, str2)

Input: Two strings str1 and str2
Output: The minimum number of changes

l1 := length of str1, and l2 = length of str2
define a matrix d of order (l1 * l2)
fill first row of d with numbers from 0 to l1 – 1, and fill first column with numbers from 0 to l2- 1
for j in range 1 to l1, do
   for i in range 1 to l2, do
      if str1[i - 1] = str2[j - 1], then
         tracker := 1
      else
         tracker := 0
      temp := minimum of d[i – 1, j] + 1 and d[i, j-1] + 1
      d[i, j] = minimum of temp and (d[i – 1, j - 1]+ tracker)
   done
done
return d[l2, l1]

Example Code

Live Demo

#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;
int d[100][100];
int min(int a, int b) {
   return (a < b) ? a : b;
}
int main() {
   int i,j,str1_len,str2_len,temp,tracker; 
   string str1 = "Support";
   string str2 = "Suppose";
   str1_len = str1.length();
   str2_len = str2.length();
   for(i = 0; i <= str1_len;i++)
      d[0][i] = i;
   for(j = 0;j <= str2_len;j++)
      d[j][0] = j;
   for (j = 1;j <= str1_len; j++) {
      for(i = 1;i <= str2_len;i++) {
         if(str1[i-1] == str2[j-1]) {
            tracker = 0;
         } else {
            tracker = 1;
         }
         temp = min((d[i-1][j]+1),(d[i][j-1]+1));
         d[i][j] = min(temp,(d[i-1][j-1]+tracker));
      }
   }
   cout << "The Levinstein distance " << d[str2_len][str1_len];
}