Levenshtein function for MySQL

mysql-levenshtein.sql

-- Levenshtein function
-- Source: https://openquery.com.au/blog/levenshtein-mysql-stored-function
-- Levenshtein reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance

-- Arjen note: because the levenshtein value is encoded in a byte array, distance cannot exceed 255;
-- thus the maximum string length this implementation can handle is also limited to 255 characters.

DELIMITER $$
DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS LEVENSHTEIN $$
CREATE FUNCTION LEVENSHTEIN(s1 VARCHAR(255) CHARACTER SET utf8, s2 VARCHAR(255) CHARACTER SET utf8)
  RETURNS INT
  DETERMINISTIC
  BEGIN
    DECLARE s1_len, s2_len, i, j, c, c_temp, cost INT;
    DECLARE s1_char CHAR CHARACTER SET utf8;
    -- max strlen=255 for this function
    DECLARE cv0, cv1 VARBINARY(256);

    SET s1_len = CHAR_LENGTH(s1),
        s2_len = CHAR_LENGTH(s2),
        cv1 = 0x00,
        j = 1,
        i = 1,
        c = 0;

    IF (s1 = s2) THEN
      RETURN (0);
    ELSEIF (s1_len = 0) THEN
      RETURN (s2_len);
    ELSEIF (s2_len = 0) THEN
      RETURN (s1_len);
    END IF;

    WHILE (j <= s2_len) DO
      SET cv1 = CONCAT(cv1, CHAR(j)),
          j = j + 1;
    END WHILE;

    WHILE (i <= s1_len) DO
      SET s1_char = SUBSTRING(s1, i, 1),
          c = i,
          cv0 = CHAR(i),
          j = 1;

      WHILE (j <= s2_len) DO
        SET c = c + 1,
            cost = IF(s1_char = SUBSTRING(s2, j, 1), 0, 1);

        SET c_temp = ORD(SUBSTRING(cv1, j, 1)) + cost;
        IF (c > c_temp) THEN
          SET c = c_temp;
        END IF;

        SET c_temp = ORD(SUBSTRING(cv1, j+1, 1)) + 1;
        IF (c > c_temp) THEN
          SET c = c_temp;
        END IF;

        SET cv0 = CONCAT(cv0, CHAR(c)),
            j = j + 1;
      END WHILE;

      SET cv1 = cv0,
          i = i + 1;
    END WHILE;

    RETURN (c);
  END $$

DELIMITER ;

Probably not intended, the MySQL = operator can be tricky. For example "ä" = "a", so LEVENSHTEIN("Hofbräu", "Hofbrau") = 0.

note: this script wouldn't run on database workbench Lite v5.6.8 but runs fine on MySQL workbench.