We investigate the problem of deterministic pattern matching in multiple
streams. In this model, one symbol arrives at a time and is associated with one
of s streaming texts. The task at each time step is to report if there is a new
match between a fixed pattern of length m and a newly updated stream. As is
usual in the streaming context, the goal is to use as little space as possible
while still reporting matches quickly. We give almost matching upper and lower
space bounds for three distinct pattern matching problems. For exact matching
we show that the problem can be solved in constant time per arriving symbol and
O(m+s) words of space. For the k-mismatch and k-difference problems we give
O(k) time solutions that require O(m+ks) words of space. In all three cases we
also give space lower bounds which show our methods are optimal up to a single
logarithmic factor. Finally we set out a number of open problems related to
this new model for pattern matching.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur