suggestSimilar.js

const maxDistance = 3;

function editDistance(a, b) {
  // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damerau–Levenshtein_distance
  // Calculating optimal string alignment distance, no substring is edited more than once.
  // (Simple implementation.)

  // Quick early exit, return worst case.
  if (Math.abs(a.length - b.length) > maxDistance)
    return Math.max(a.length, b.length);

  // distance between prefix substrings of a and b
  const d = [];

  // pure deletions turn a into empty string
  for (let i = 0; i <= a.length; i++) {
    d[i] = [i];
  }
  // pure insertions turn empty string into b
  for (let j = 0; j <= b.length; j++) {
    d[0][j] = j;
  }

  // fill matrix
  for (let j = 1; j <= b.length; j++) {
    for (let i = 1; i <= a.length; i++) {
      let cost = 1;
      if (a[i - 1] === b[j - 1]) {
        cost = 0;
      } else {
        cost = 1;
      }
      d[i][j] = Math.min(
        d[i - 1][j] + 1, // deletion
        d[i][j - 1] + 1, // insertion
        d[i - 1][j - 1] + cost, // substitution
      );
      // transposition
      if (i > 1 && j > 1 && a[i - 1] === b[j - 2] && a[i - 2] === b[j - 1]) {
        d[i][j] = Math.min(d[i][j], d[i - 2][j - 2] + 1);
      }
    }
  }

  return d[a.length][b.length];
}

/**
 * Find close matches, restricted to same number of edits.
 *
 * @param {string} word
 * @param {string[]} candidates
 * @returns {string}
 */

function suggestSimilar(word, candidates) {
  if (!candidates || candidates.length === 0) return '';
  // remove possible duplicates
  candidates = Array.from(new Set(candidates));

  const searchingOptions = word.startsWith('--');
  if (searchingOptions) {
    word = word.slice(2);
    candidates = candidates.map((candidate) => candidate.slice(2));
  }

  let similar = [];
  let bestDistance = maxDistance;
  const minSimilarity = 0.4;
  candidates.forEach((candidate) => {
    if (candidate.length <= 1) return; // no one character guesses

    const distance = editDistance(word, candidate);
    const length = Math.max(word.length, candidate.length);
    const similarity = (length - distance) / length;
    if (similarity > minSimilarity) {
      if (distance < bestDistance) {
        // better edit distance, throw away previous worse matches
        bestDistance = distance;
        similar = [candidate];
      } else if (distance === bestDistance) {
        similar.push(candidate);
      }
    }
  });

  similar.sort((a, b) => a.localeCompare(b));
  if (searchingOptions) {
    similar = similar.map((candidate) => `--${candidate}`);
  }

  if (similar.length > 1) {
    return `\n(Did you mean one of ${similar.join(', ')}?)`;
  }
  if (similar.length === 1) {
    return `\n(Did you mean ${similar[0]}?)`;
  }
  return '';
}

exports.suggestSimilar = suggestSimilar;