A Fast Algorithm for Multi-pattern Searching

A new algorithm to search for multiple patterns at the same time is presented. The algorithm is faster than previous algorithms and can support a very large number — tens of thousands — of patterns. Several applications of the multi-pattern matching problem are discussed. We argue that, in addition to previous applications that required such search, multi-pattern matching can be used in lieu of indexed or sorted data in some applications involving small to medium size datasets. Its advantage, of course, is that no additional search structure is needed.