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.

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Answer 1

Depending on the wildcard "language", I'd (probably) simply write a wildcard->regexp compiler and use the (commonly provided) regexp engine to do the actual matching. It's a bit lazy, but unless there's an actual performance problem doing it that way, it'd be fast enough.