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NeedlemanWunschSimilarity[u,v]

gives a number representing the Needleman–Wunsch similarity between strings, vectors or biomolecular sequences u and v.

Details and Options
Details and Options Details and Options
Examples  
Basic Examples  
Options  
SimilarityRules  
See Also
Related Guides
History
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NeedlemanWunschSimilarity

NeedlemanWunschSimilarity[u,v]

gives a number representing the Needleman–Wunsch similarity between strings, vectors or biomolecular sequences u and v.

Details and Options

  • NeedlemanWunschSimilarity[u,v] finds an optimal global alignment between the elements of u and v, and returns the number of one-element matches.
  • NeedlemanWunschSimilarity takes the following options:
  • GapPenalty0additional cost for each alignment gap
    IgnoreCaseFalsewhether to ignore case of letters in strings
    SimilarityRules Automaticrules for similarities between elements
  • With the default setting SimilarityRules->Automatic, each match between two elements contributes to the total similarity score, while each mismatch, insertion or deletion contributes .
  • The option GapPenalty specifies an additional cost to be subtracted from the similarity score for any run of insertions or deletions.

Examples

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Basic Examples  (3)

Needleman–Wunsch similarity between two strings:

Needleman–Wunsch similarity between two vectors:

Needleman–Wunsch similarity between two biomolecular sequences:

Options  (1)

SimilarityRules  (1)

The "SimilarDegenerateBases" setting allows a higher similarity for matching degenerate terms in biomolecular sequences:

Wolfram Research (2008), NeedlemanWunschSimilarity, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NeedlemanWunschSimilarity.html (updated 2020).

Text

Wolfram Research (2008), NeedlemanWunschSimilarity, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NeedlemanWunschSimilarity.html (updated 2020).

CMS

Wolfram Language. 2008. "NeedlemanWunschSimilarity." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 2020. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NeedlemanWunschSimilarity.html.

APA

Wolfram Language. (2008). NeedlemanWunschSimilarity. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NeedlemanWunschSimilarity.html

BibTeX

@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_needlemanwunschsimilarity, author="Wolfram Research", title="{NeedlemanWunschSimilarity}", year="2020", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NeedlemanWunschSimilarity.html}", note=[Accessed: 28-August-2025]}

BibLaTeX

@online{reference.wolfram_2025_needlemanwunschsimilarity, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={NeedlemanWunschSimilarity}, year={2020}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/NeedlemanWunschSimilarity.html}, note=[Accessed: 28-August-2025]}