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When Is the Normalized Edit Distance over Non-Uniform Weights a Metric?

Authors Dana Fisman , Ilay Tzarfati

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Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Theory of computation → Pattern matching
  • Theory of computation → Formal languages and automata theory
Keywords
  • Normalized Edit Distance
  • Non-uniform Weights
  • Triangle Inequality
  • Metric

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Abstract

The well known Normalized Edit Distance (ned) [Marzal and Vidal 1993] is known to disobey the triangle inequality on contrived weight functions, while in practice it often exhibits a triangular behavior. Let d be a weight function on basic edit operations, and let ned_{d} be the resulting normalized edit distance. The question what criteria should d satisfy for ned_{d} to be a metric is long standing. It was recently shown that when d is the uniform weight function (all operations cost 1 except for no-op which costs 0) then ned_{d} is a metric. The question regarding non-uniform weights remained open. In this paper we answer this question by providing a necessary and sufficient condition on d under which ned_{d} is a metric.

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Dana Fisman and Ilay Tzarfati. When Is the Normalized Edit Distance over Non-Uniform Weights a Metric?. In 35th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 296, pp. 14:1-14:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2024.14

Author Details

Dana Fisman
  • Department of Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel
Ilay Tzarfati
  • Department of Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel

Funding

  • Tzarfati, Ilay: Supported by ISF grant 2507/21 and Frankel Center for Computer Science, BGU.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Oded Margalit, Elina Sudit and Sandra Zilles for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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