String Covering: A Survey

TL;DR

This survey reviews the concept of string covers, their variants, and related research directions, emphasizing their importance in compact string representation and processing.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of string covering methods, including seed covers and future research avenues in string processing.

Findings

Survey of various string covering methods since 1990

Discussion of covering by seeds and superstrings

Proposals for future research directions in string processing

Abstract

The study of strings is an important combinatorial field that precedes the digital computer. Strings can be very long, trillions of letters, so it is important to find compact representations. Here we first survey various forms of one potential compaction methodology, the cover of a given string x, initially proposed in a simple form in 1990, but increasingly of interest as more sophisticated variants have been discovered. We then consider covering by a seed; that is, a cover of a superstring of x. We conclude with many proposals for research directions that could make significant contributions to string processing in future.