Fast Algorithms for Exact String Matching

Abstract

Given a pattern string $P$ of length $n$ and a query string $T$ of length $m$, where the characters of $P$ and $T$ are drawn from an alphabet of size $\Delta$, the {\em exact string matching} problem consists of finding all occurrences of $P$ in $T$. For this problem, we present algorithms that in $O(n\Delta^2)$ time pre-process $P$ to essentially identify $sparse(P)$, a rarely occurring substring of $P$, and then use it to find occurrences of $P$ in $T$ efficiently. Our algorithms require a worst case search time of $O(m)$, and expected search time of $O(m/min(|sparse(P)|, \Delta))$, where $|sparse(P)|$ is at least $\delta$ (i.e. the number of distinct characters in $P$), and for most pattern strings it is observed to be $\Omega(n^{1/2})$.