Wildcard string matching

Question

What is the most efficient wildcard string matching algorithm? I am asking only about an idea, it is not necessary to provide actual code.

I\'m thinking that such al

Answer 1

Hm, I think that normal pattern matching rules would apply here. Usually, since you have a stream of data and short patterns, you would not need to implement something more efficient than linear. However, the longer the pattern gets, the more room there is for optimization.

What kind of wildcard do you have in mind? a one-character-wildcard (e.g. . in regex), or a multiple-character-wildcard (e.g. .*)? Are there limitations? What is the expected pattern length, and do you have random or serial access to the data to be checked?