Fast Searching in Packed Strings

Given strings $P$ and $Q$ the (exact) string matching problem is to find all positions of substrings in $Q$ matching $P$. The classical Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm [SIAM J. Comput., 1977] solves the string matching problem in linear time which is optimal if we can only read one character at the time. However, most strings are stored in a computer in a packed representation with several characters in a single word, giving us the opportunity to read multiple characters simultaneously. In this paper we study the worst-case complexity of string matching on strings given in packed representation. Let $m \leq n$ be the lengths $P$ and $Q$, respectively, and let $\sigma$ denote the size of the alphabet. On a standard unit-cost word-RAM with logarithmic word size we present an algorithm using time O\left(\frac{n}{\log_\sigma n} + m + \occ\right). Here \occ is the number of occurrences of $P$ in $Q$. For $m = o(n)$ this improves the $O(n)$ bound of the Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm. Furthermore, if $m = O(n/\log_\sigma n)$ our algorithm is optimal since any algorithm must spend at least \Omega(\frac{(n+m)\log \sigma}{\log n} + \occ) = \Omega(\frac{n}{\log_\sigma n} + \occ) time to read the input and report all occurrences. The result is obtained by a novel automaton construction based on the Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm combined with a new compact representation of subautomata allowing an optimal tabulation-based simulation.Comment: To appear in Journal of Discrete Algorithms. Special Issue on CPM 200

ZASTOSOWANIE ALGORYTMU WYSZUKIWANIA WIELU WZORCÓW OPARTEGO O TECHNIKĘ Q-GRAMÓW DO WYSZUKIWANIA PRZYBLIŻONEGO

We consider the application of multiple pattern matching (Multi AOSO on q-Grams) algorithm for approximate pattern matching. We propose the on-line approach which translates the problem from approximate pattern matching into a multiple pattern one (called partitioning into exact search). Presented solution allows relatively fast search multiple patterns in text with given k-differences(or mismatches). This paper presents comparison of solution based on MAG algorithm, and [4]. Experiments on DNA, English, Proteins and XML texts with up to k errors show that the new proposed algorithm achieves relatively good results in practical use.Rozważamy zastosowanie algorytmu wyszukiwania wielu wzorców (Multi AOSO on q-Grams) do wyszukiwania przybliżonego. Proponujemy rozwiązanie on-line, upraszczające problem wyszukiwania przybliżonego do wyszukiwania wielu wzorców. Zaprezentowane rozwiązanie umożliwia relatywnie szybko wyszukiwać wiele wzorców dla odległości Levenshteina (lub Hamminga) z ograniczeniem do k. W artykule porównane jest rozwiązanie oparte na algorytmie MAG oraz [4]. Badania eksperymentalne przeprowadzone na zbiorach DNA, English, Proteins and XML z różnymi wartościami k wykazały, że zaproponowany algorytm osiąga relatywnie dobre wyniki w praktycznym zastosowaniu

Approximate string matching with reduced alphabet

Peer reviewe

Optimal Packed String Matching

In the packed string matching problem, each machine word accommodates α characters, thus an n-character text occupies n/α memory words. We extend the Crochemore-Perrin constantspace O(n)-time string matching algorithm to run in optimal O(n/α) time and even in real-time, achieving a factor α speedup over traditional algorithms that examine each character individually. Our solution can be efficiently implemented, unlike prior theoretical packed string matching work. We adapt the standard RAM model and only use its AC 0 instructions (i.e., no multiplication) plus two specialized AC 0 packed string instructions. The main string-matching instruction is available in commodity processors (i.e., Intel’s SSE4.2 and AVX Advanced String Operations); the other maximal-suffix instruction is only required during pattern preprocessing. In the absence of these two specialized instructions, we propose theoretically-efficient emulation using integer multiplication (not AC 0) and table lookup

A compact representation of nondeterministic (suffix) automata for the bit-parallel approach

AbstractWe present a novel technique, suitable for bit-parallelism, for representing both the nondeterministic automaton and the nondeterministic suffix automaton of a given string in a more compact way. Our approach is based on a particular factorization of strings which on the average allows to pack in a machine word of w bits automata state configurations for strings of length greater than w. We adapted the Shift-And and BNDM algorithms using our encoding and compared them with the original algorithms. Experimental results show that the new variants are generally faster for long patterns

Revisiting Multiple Pattern Matching

We consider the classical exact multiple string matching problem. The proposed solution is based on a combination of a few ideas: using q-grams instead of single characters, pattern superimposition, bit-parallelism and alphabet size reduction. We discuss the pros and cons of various alternatives to achieve the possibly best combination of techniques. The main contribution of this paper are different alphabet mapping methods that allow to reduce memory requirements and use larger q-grams. The experimental results show that the presented algorithm is competitive in most practical cases. One of the tests shows also that tailoring our scheme to search over a byte-encoded text results in speedups in comparison to searching over a plain text

Towards optimal packed string matching

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Dedicated to Professor Gad M. Landau, on the occasion of his 60th birthday Keywords: String matching Word-RAM Packed strings In the packed string matching problem, it is assumed that each machine word can accommodate up to α characters, thus an n-character string occupies n/α memory words. The main word-size string-matching instruction wssm is available in contemporary commodity processors. The other word-size maximum-suffix instruction wslm is only required during the pattern pre-processing. Benchmarks show that our solution can be efficiently implemented, unlike some prior theoretical packed string matching work. (b) We also consider the complexity of the packed string matching problem in the classical word-RAM model in the absence of the specialized micro-level instructions wssm and wslm. We propose micro-level algorithms for the theoretically efficient emulation using parallel algorithms techniques to emulate wssm and using the Four-Russians technique to emulate wslm. Surprisingly, our bit-parallel emulation of wssm also leads to a new simplified parallel random access machine string-matching algorithm. As a byproduct to facilitate our results we develop a new algorithm for finding the leftmost (most significant) 1 bits in consecutive non-overlapping blocks of uniform size inside a word. This latter problem is not known to be reducible to finding the rightmost 1, which can be easily solved, since we do not know how to reverse the bits of a word in O (1) time