string likeness test using Levenshtein distance

name_likeness.rb

# install the levenshtein gem first with:
# sudo gem install levenshtein-ffi

require 'levenshtein'

def names_are_close?(s1, s2, tolerance = 1)
  Levenshtein.distance(s1, s2) == tolerance
end

name_pairs = [
  ['james', 'jimes'],
  ['Worthington', 'Worthintgon'],
  ['Diego', 'Deigo'],
  ['Tobias', 'Tiboas'],
  ['Eduardo', 'Edward'],
  ['Brian', 'Burton']
]

name_pairs.each do |names|
  print "Testing #{names.inspect}: "
  passed = names_are_close? *names
  puts "They are #{passed ? 'close' : 'not close'}\n"
end

puts "Done."