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Asked: 2026-05-14T00:02:13+00:00

I want to loop through a database of documents and calculate a pairwise comparison

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I want to loop through a database of documents and calculate a pairwise comparison score.

A simplistic, naive method would nest a loop within another loop. This would result in the program comparing documents twice and also comparing each document to itself.

Is there a name for the algorithm for doing this task efficiently?
Is there a name for this approach?

Thanks.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Assume all items have a number ItemNumber

    Simple solution — always have the 2nd element’s ItemNumber greater than the first item.

    eg

    for (firstitem = 1 to maxitemnumber)
  for (seconditem = firstitemnumber+1 to maxitemnumber)
    compare(firstitem, seconditem)

    visual note: if you think of the compare as a matrix (item number of one on one axis item of the other on the other axis) this looks at one of the triangles.

    ........
x.......
xx......
xxx.....
xxxx....
xxxxx...
xxxxxx..
xxxxxxx.
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