SAP DISTANCE FUNCTIONS documentation, setup help and example usage

ARTICLE

distance - Distance Function

Syntax
... distance( val1 = text1 val2 = text2 [max = max] ) ...

Effect
This function returns the Levenshtein distance between two strings text1 and text2 . This distance is the minimum number of insert, delete, and replace operations required to change one string to another and hence reflects the similarity of the two strings. The return value has the type i .
You can use max to declare a positive value other than 0; the calculation of the Levenshtein distance is canceled if the distance is greater than max . The value of max is returned instead. max is a numerical expression position of the type i . If the value of max is less than or equal to 0, an exception of the class
CX_SY_STRG_PAR_VAL is raised. If max is not specified, the calculation is not terminated

Notes

The complexity of the function increases in line with the product of the lengths of the two strings. You can limit the calculation time by declaring max .

One typical application of this function is to find a word in a word set that is most similar to a word entered in a search.

Example
See Character String Functions, distance



Runtime Exceptions

Catchable Exceptions
CX_SY_STRG_PAR_VAL

Reason for error: Value in max is less than or equal to 0.

Runtime error: STRG_ILLEGAL_PAR

Documentation extract taken from SAP system, � Copyright SAP AG. All rights reserved

DIRECT_UPDATE_GLOSRY

DIVISIONS_ABEXA

comments powered by Disqus

SAP Development ABAP SAP Reporting Data Dictionary Search Helps SAP Tables

Contact Us Partners Terms of Service Privacy Policy Advertise Resources