I'd use XOR logic.
# $m = 5
# $a = "ABCDEFGHIJKL"
# $b = "ACHDEFIHAJLK"
# $diff = 0
# $xor_ed = "\000\001\013\000\000\000\016\000\010\000\007\007"
sub mdiff {
my ($m,$a,$b) = @_;
my ($la,$lb) = (length $a, length $b);
my $xor_ed;
my $diff = abs($lb - $la);
return 1 if $diff >= $m;
return 1 if ($diff + ($xor_ed = $a ^ $b) =~ tr/\0//c) >= $m;
}
Bitwise XOR in strings is a beautiful thing. The number of NULs in the XOR-ed string (\0) will be the number of same characters. The opposite is the number of different characters, so I tr/\0//c.