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I have two lists of strings like this:

list1={"a dog is in the house","have a nice day","hello my friend"};
list2={"a dog is in house","watching tv is nice","hello my friends"};

Now i want to use SmithWatermanSimilarity to check for similarity like this: For each element in list1 check if there are similar elements in list2 (by defining a threshold value for SmithWatermanSimilarity e.g. the value should be higher than 0.9 of StringLenght or so)

The desired output should be a list like this:

list3={{"a dog is in the house","a dog is in house"},{"have a nice day"},{"hello my friend","hello my friends"}};

I already found a rough solution which uses a combination of If and two nested Table but this seems to me a little bit clumsy one... 

Table[Table[
  If[SmithWatermanSimilarity[list1[[x]], 
     list2[[y]]] > (StringLength[list1[[x]]]*0.8), {list1[[x]], 
    list2[[y]]}, list1[[x]]], {x, 1, Length[list1]}], {y, 1, 
  Length[list2]}]
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  • $\begingroup$ @High Performance Mark: See update above. It is not even a rough solution since the desired output is not obtained. How can I efficiently manage to put out EITHER the pair of similar strings OR the string in list1?? $\endgroup$
    – M.A.
    Commented Mar 5, 2019 at 11:08

1 Answer 1

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t = .9;
{#, Select[list2, Function[x, t StringLength[#] <= SmithWatermanSimilarity[x, #]]]}&/@list1

{{"a dog is in the house", {}},
{"have a nice day", {}},
{"hello my friend", {"hello my friends"}}}

t = .6;
{#, Select[list2, Function[x, t StringLength[#] <= SmithWatermanSimilarity[x, #]]]}&/@list1

{{"a dog is in the house", {"a dog is in house"}},
{"have a nice day", {}},
{"hello my friend", {"hello my friends"}}}

We can use RelationGraph to visualize:

t = .6;
RelationGraph[t StringLength[#] <= SmithWatermanSimilarity[##] &, list1, list2, 
 VertexLabels -> "Name", 
 VertexCoordinates -> Join[MapIndexed[# -> {0, -#2[[1]]/3} &, list1], 
   MapIndexed[# -> {1, -#2[[1]]/3} &, list2]]]

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ That is a very nice code but i have another question: what if list1 and list2 are themselves lists of lists? For example {"hello my friend", "DATA Y", "DATA YY"} and {"hello my friends", "DATA Z", "DATA ZZ"}. How do i modify your code to select and match the whole lists based on the first element "hello my friend" / "hello my friends". Or would you suggest, in this case, a different approach? thx. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.
    Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 13:43
  • $\begingroup$ @M.A. is the desired output {{"hello my friend", "DATA Y", "DATA YY"},{"hello my friends", "DATA Z", "DATA ZZ"}} for the example? $\endgroup$
    – kglr
    Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 13:55
  • $\begingroup$ yes. but the matching criterion (SmithWaterman) is only relevant for the first element. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.
    Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 14:03
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    $\begingroup$ @M.A. something like: t = .9; lista = {"hello my friend", "DATA Y", "DATA YY"} ; listb = { {"hello my friends", "DATA Z", "DATA ZZ"}, {"hello my friendsss", "DATA W", "DATA YY"}}; {lista, Select[listb, t StringLength[#[[1]]] <= SmithWatermanSimilarity[lista[[1]], #[[1]]] &]}? $\endgroup$
    – kglr
    Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 14:30
  • $\begingroup$ Thats it! I was close to it - i just used a wrong part specification! thx! $\endgroup$
    – M.A.
    Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 14:49

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