A dictionary for approximate string search and longest prefix search

Abstract

In this paper we propose a dictionary data structure for string search with errors where the query string may didiffer from the expected matching string by a few edits. This data structure can also be used to find the database string with the longest common prefix with few errors. Specifically, with a database of n random strings, each of length of O(m), we show how to perform string search on a query string that differs from its closest match by k edits using a data structure of linear size and query time equal to O(log n2 log nklog a 2m over 2m). This means that if k