# Hamming

Calculate the Hamming difference between two DNA strands.

A mutation is simply a mistake that occurs during the creation or
copying of a nucleic acid, in particular DNA. Because nucleic acids are
vital to cellular functions, mutations tend to cause a ripple effect
throughout the cell. Although mutations are technically mistakes, a very
rare mutation may equip the cell with a beneficial attribute. In fact,
the macro effects of evolution are attributable by the accumulated
result of beneficial microscopic mutations over many generations.

The simplest and most common type of nucleic acid mutation is a point
mutation, which replaces one base with another at a single nucleotide.

By counting the number of differences between two homologous DNA strands
taken from different genomes with a common ancestor, we get a measure of
the minimum number of point mutations that could have occurred on the
evolutionary path between the two strands.

This is called the 'Hamming distance'.

It is found by comparing two DNA strands and counting how many of the
nucleotides are different from their equivalent in the other string.

    GAGCCTACTAACGGGAT
    CATCGTAATGACGGCCT
    ^ ^ ^  ^ ^    ^^

The Hamming distance between these two DNA strands is 7.

# Implementation notes

The Hamming distance is only defined for sequences of equal length. This means
that based on the definition, each language could deal with getting sequences
of equal length differently.

## Running tests

In order to run the tests, issue the following command from the exercise
directory:

For running the tests provided, `rebar3` is used as it is the official build and
dependency management tool for erlang now. Please refer to [the tracks installation
instructions](http://exercism.io/languages/erlang/installation) on how to do that.

In order to run the tests, you can issue the following command from the exercise
directory.

```bash
$ rebar3 eunit
```

### Test versioning

Each problem defines a macro `TEST_VERSION` in the test file and
verifies that the solution defines and exports a function `test_version`
returning that same value.

To make tests pass, add the following to your solution:

```erlang
-export([test_version/0]).

test_version() ->
  1.
```

The benefit of this is that reviewers can see against which test version
an iteration was written if, for example, a previously posted solution
does not solve the current problem or passes current tests.

## Questions?

For detailed information about the Erlang track, please refer to the
[help page](http://exercism.io/languages/erlang) on the Exercism site.
This covers the basic information on setting up the development
environment expected by the exercises.

## Source

The Calculating Point Mutations problem at Rosalind [http://rosalind.info/problems/hamm/](http://rosalind.info/problems/hamm/)

## Submitting Incomplete Solutions
It's possible to submit an incomplete solution so you can see how others have completed the exercise.