getting the closest string match using php

1<?php
2
3$input = 'Director, My Company';
4
5// array of words to check against
6$words  = array('Foo bar','Lorem Ispum','Director');
7
8// no shortest distance found, yet
9$shortest = -1;
10
11// loop through words to find the closest
12foreach ($words as $word) {
13
14    // calculate the distance between the input word,
15    // and the current word
16    $lev = levenshtein($input, $word);
17
18    // check for an exact match
19    if ($lev == 0) {
20
21        // closest word is this one (exact match)
22        $closest = $word;
23        $shortest = 0;
24
25        // break out of the loop; we've found an exact match
26        break;
27    }
28
29    // if this distance is less than the next found shortest
30    // distance, OR if a next shortest word has not yet been found
31    if ($lev <= $shortest || $shortest < 0) {
32        // set the closest match, and shortest distance
33        $closest  = $word;
34        $shortest = $lev;
35    }
36}
37
38echo "Input word: $input\n";
39if ($shortest == 0) {
40    echo "Exact match found: $closest\n";
41} else {
42    echo "Did you mean: $closest?\n";
43}
44