question: public int strDistance ( char [ ] a , char [ ] b ) throws SAXException { if ( a . length == b . length ) { int distance = 0 ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < a . length ; i ++ ) { int tDist = Math . abs ( Character . getNumericValue ( a [ i ] ) - Character . getNumericValue ( b [ i ] ) ) ; distance += tDist ; } return distance ; } else { throw new SAXException ( "Unable to compute SAX distance, string lengths are not equal" ) ; } }
target:  Compute the distance between the two strings, this function use the numbers associated with ASCII codes, i.e. distance between a and b would be 1.