String searching is a subject of both theoretical and practical interest in computer science. This book presents a bibliographic overview of the field and an anthology of detailed descriptions of the principal algorithms available. The aim is twofold: on the one hand, to provide an easy-to-read comparison of the available techniques in each area, and on the other, to furnish the reader with a reference to in-depth descriptions of the major algorithms. Topics covered include methods for finding exact and approximate string matches, calculating ‘edit’ distances between strings, finding common sequences and finding the longest repetitions within strings. For clarity, all the algorithms are presented in a uniform format and notation.