A Novel Algorithm for String Matching with Mismatches

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new online string matching algorithm that efficiently reports character matches with minimal space, based on character frequency analysis, suitable for real-time applications.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel, space-efficient algorithm for string matching with mismatches, avoiding complex data structures like suffix trees.

Findings

Reduces space complexity compared to traditional methods.

Provides an efficient online pattern matching solution.

Simplifies implementation with basic arrays.

Abstract

We present an online algorithm to deal with pattern matching in strings. The problem we investigate is commonly known as string matching with mismatches in which the objective is to report the number of characters that match when a pattern is aligned with every location in the text. The novel method we propose is based on the frequencies of individual characters in the pattern and the text. The algorithm consumes minimal space in the form of simple arrays, which reduces the cost overhead to maintain the complex data structures such as suffix trees or automaton.