How does similar_text work?

Question

I just found the similar_text function and was playing around with it, but the percentage output always suprises me. See the examples below.

I tried to find informa

Answer 1

Description int similar_text ( string $first , string $second [, float &$percent ] )

This calculates the similarity between two strings as described in Oliver [1993]. Note that this implementation does not use a stack as in Oliver's pseudo code, but recursive calls which may or may not speed up the whole process. Note also that the complexity of this algorithm is O(N**3) where N is the length of the longest string. Parameters

first

The first string.

second

The second string.

percent

By passing a reference as third argument, similar_text() will calculate the similarity in percent for you.