This tweet made me build this tool.
Compute the shortest distance between two words of a given set. The result will be the path minimizing edit distance between each word in the path. Result could be used to perform the social engineering idea of the tweet.
$wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smashew/NameDatabases/master/NamesDatabases/first%20names/all.txt
$./typos all.txt adrien pierre
Using input file: all.txt with astar algorithm to compute shortest path between adrien and pierre
19950 words loaded into memory
Shortest path found in 546.55645ms: adrien->adrian->adria->aria->iria->ira->iera->piera->piere->pierre (achieved in 9 1-letter mutation)
$./typos all.txt adrien maximilien
Using input file: all.txt with astar algorithm to compute shortest path between adrien and maximilien
19950 words loaded into memory
Shortest path found in 121.622294335s: adrien->adriel->ariel->mariel->marie->maxie->maxime->maxima->maximina->maximilia->maximilian->maximilien (achieved in 9 1-letter mutation + 2 2-letter mutation)
So, in practice, if you want to change a plane ticket from:
- Adrien to Pierre you'll have to make 9 phone calls to claim for a typo in your first name
- Adrien to Maxime you'll have to make 11 phone calls to claim for a typo. 2 of those phone calls might be harder because they required a 2-letters change.
$typos --help
Find a short path between two input words
USAGE:
typos <INPUT> <START> <END> [ALGORITHM]
FLAGS:
-h, --help Prints help information
-V, --version Prints version information
ARGS:
<INPUT> Sets the input file to use
<START> starting word
<END> ending word
<ALGORITHM> algorithm to use to compute shortest path [default: astar] [possible values: astar, idastar,
dijkstra, fringe]This is a project done for fun, in order to learn Rust :) Of course this is not intended for real-life use and should not be used to perform illegal activities.