strlookup

Find strings in a list of cells and return near matches if no exact match is found.

This function uses strcmp or strcmpi to return indices of a list of strings matching an input string. If no matches are found, close matches are suggested.

Syntax
ind = strlookup('string',list)
ind = strlookup(...,'CaseSensitive')
ind = strlookup(...,'threshold',ThresholdValue)
[ind,CloseNames] = strlookup(...)

Description
ind = strlookup('string',list) returns indices ind corresponding to cell entries in list matching 'string'.

ind = strlookup(...,'CaseSensitive') performs a case-sensitive strlookup.

ind = strlookup(...,'threshold',ThresholdValue) declares a threshold value for close matches. You will rarely (if ever) need to use this. The ThresholdValue is a metric of how closely matches should be when offering suggestions. Low threshold values limit suggested matches to a shorter list whereas high thresholds expand the list size. By default, the threshold starts at 1.5, then increases or decreases depending on how many close matches are returned. If fewer than 3 close matches are returned, the threshold is increased and it looks for more matches. If more than 10 close matches are found, the threshold is tightened (reduced) until fewer than 10 matches are found.

[ind,CloseNames] = strlookup(...) suppresses command window output if no exact match is found, and instead returns an empty matrix ind and a cell array of close matches in names. If exact match(es) is/are found, ind will be populated and CloseNames will be empty.