String Searching Algorithm
In computer science, string searching algorithms, sometimes called string matching algorithms, are an important class of string algorithms that try to find a place where one or several strings (also called patterns) are found within a larger string or text.
Let Σ be an alphabet (finite set). Formally, both the pattern and searched text are vectors of elements of Σ. The Σ may be a usual human alphabet (for example, the letters A through Z in the Latin alphabet). Other applications may use binary alphabet (Σ = {0,1}) or DNA alphabet (Σ = {A,C,G,T}) in bioinformatics.
In practice, how the string is encoded can affect the feasible string search algorithms. In particular if a variable width encoding is in use then it is slow (time proportional to N) to find the Nth character. This will significantly slow down many of the more advanced search algorithms. A possible solution is to search for the sequence of code units instead, but doing so may produce false matches unless the encoding is specifically designed to avoid it.
Read more about String Searching Algorithm: Other Classification
Famous quotes containing the words string and/or searching:
“Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“I have been searching history to see if really a woman has any precedent to claim the right to have her rights, and I am compelled to say that we men are not so much ahead of women after all, and the only way we have kept our reputation up is by keeping her down—and don’t you forget it!”
—George E. Foster, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 38-41 (October 1886)