fuzzysearch 0.5.0

fuzzysearch is a Python library for fuzzy substring searches. It implements efficient ad-hoc searching for approximate sub-sequences. Matching is done using a generalized Levenshtein Distance metric, with configurable parameters.

• Free software: MIT license
• Documentation: http://fuzzysearch.rtfd.org.

Installation

Just install using pip:

$ pip install fuzzysearch

Features

• Fuzzy sub-sequence search: Find parts of a sequence which match a given sub-sequence.
• Easy to use: A single function to call which returns a list of matches.
• Set a maximum Levenshtein Distance for matches, including individual limits for the number of substitutions, insertions and/or deletions allowed for near-matches.
• Includes optimized implementations for specific use-cases, e.g. allowing only substitutions.

Simple Examples

Just call find_near_matches() with the sequence to search, the sub-sequence you’re looking for, and the matching parameters:

>>> from fuzzysearch import find_near_matches
# search for 'PATTERN' with a maximum Levenshtein Distance of 1
>>> find_near_matches('PATTERN', '---PATERN---', max_l_dist=1)
[Match(start=3, end=9, dist=1)]

>>> sequence = '''\
GACTAGCACTGTAGGGATAACAATTTCACACAGGTGGACAATTACATTGAAAATCACAGATTGGTCACACACACA
TTGGACATACATAGAAACACACACACATACATTAGATACGAACATAGAAACACACATTAGACGCGTACATAGACA
CAAACACATTGACAGGCAGTTCAGATGATGACGCCCGACTGATACTCGCGTAGTCGTGGGAGGCAAGGCACACAG
GGGATAGG'''
>>> subsequence = 'TGCACTGTAGGGATAACAAT' # distance = 1
>>> find_near_matches(subsequence, sequence, max_l_dist=2)
[Match(start=3, end=24, dist=1)]

Advanced Search Criteria

The search function supports four possible match criteria, which may be supplied in any combination:

• maximum Levenshtein distance
• maximum # of subsitutions
• maximum # of deletions (elements appearing in the pattern search for, which are skipped in the matching sub-sequence)
• maximum # of insertions (elements added in the matching sub-sequence which don’t appear in the pattern search for)

Not supplying a criterion means that there is no limit for it. For this reason, one must always supply max_l_dist and/or all other criteria.

>>> find_near_matches('PATTERN', '---PATERN---', max_l_dist=1)
[Match(start=3, end=9, dist=1)]

# this will not match since max-deletions is set to zero
>>> find_near_matches('PATTERN', '---PATERN---', max_l_dist=1, max_deletions=0)
[]

# note that a deletion + insertion may be combined to match a substution
>>> find_near_matches('PATTERN', '---PAT-ERN---', max_deletions=1, max_insertions=1, max_substitutions=0)
[Match(start=3, end=10, dist=1)] # the Levenshtein distance is still 1

# ... but deletion + insertion may also match other, non-substitution differences
>>> find_near_matches('PATTERN', '---PATERRN---', max_deletions=1, max_insertions=1, max_substitutions=0)
[Match(start=3, end=10, dist=2)]

History

0.3.0 (2015-02-12)

• Added C extensions for several search functions as well as internal functions
• Use C extensions if available, or pure-Python implementations otherwise
• setup.py attempts to build C extensions, but installs without if build fails
• Added --noexts setup.py option to avoid trying to build the C extensions
• Greatly improved testing and coverage

0.2.2 (2014-03-27)

• Added support for searching through BioPython Seq objects
• Added specialized search function allowing only subsitutions and insertions
• Fixed several bugs

0.2.1 (2014-03-14)

• Fixed major match grouping bug

0.2.0 (2013-03-13)

• New utility function find_near_matches() for easier use
• Additional documentation

0.1.0 (2013-11-12)

• Two working implementations
• Extensive test suite; all tests passing
• Full support for Python 2.6-2.7 and 3.1-3.3
• Bumped status from Pre-Alpha to Alpha

0.0.1 (2013-11-01)

• First release on PyPI.