-- Levenshtein function -- Source: https://openquery.com.au/blog/levenshtein-mysql-stored-function -- Levenshtein reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance -- Arjen note: because the levenshtein value is encoded in a byte array, distance cannot exceed 255; -- thus the maximum string length this implementation can handle is also limited to 255 characters. DELIMITER $$ DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS LEVENSHTEIN $$ CREATE FUNCTION LEVENSHTEIN(s1 VARCHAR(255) CHARACTER SET utf8, s2 VARCHAR(255) CHARACTER SET utf8) RETURNS INT DETERMINISTIC BEGIN DECLARE s1_len, s2_len, i, j, c, c_temp, cost INT; DECLARE s1_char CHAR CHARACTER SET utf8; -- max strlen=255 for this function DECLARE cv0, cv1 VARBINARY(256); SET s1_len = CHAR_LENGTH(s1), s2_len = CHAR_LENGTH(s2), cv1 = 0x00, j = 1, i = 1, c = 0; IF (s1 = s2) THEN RETURN (0); ELSEIF (s1_len = 0) THEN RETURN (s2_len); ELSEIF (s2_len = 0) THEN RETURN (s1_len); END IF; WHILE (j <= s2_len) DO SET cv1 = CONCAT(cv1, CHAR(j)), j = j + 1; END WHILE; WHILE (i <= s1_len) DO SET s1_char = SUBSTRING(s1, i, 1), c = i, cv0 = CHAR(i), j = 1; WHILE (j <= s2_len) DO SET c = c + 1, cost = IF(s1_char = SUBSTRING(s2, j, 1), 0, 1); SET c_temp = ORD(SUBSTRING(cv1, j, 1)) + cost; IF (c > c_temp) THEN SET c = c_temp; END IF; SET c_temp = ORD(SUBSTRING(cv1, j+1, 1)) + 1; IF (c > c_temp) THEN SET c = c_temp; END IF; SET cv0 = CONCAT(cv0, CHAR(c)), j = j + 1; END WHILE; SET cv1 = cv0, i = i + 1; END WHILE; RETURN (c); END $$ DELIMITER ;