Everything about Approximate string matching

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

1. Read the overview: Approximate string matchingA 5-minute orientation
2. Skim a recent paper: A weak approach to suffix automata simulation for exact and approximate string matchingInfluential work since 2022
3. Pick up a classic book: Introduction to AlgorithmsThe most-reprinted book on the subject
4. Read the landmark paper: A guided tour to approximate string matchingCited 1,803 times
5. Go sideways: Bitap algorithmA closely related topic
6. Go sideways: Levenshtein distanceA closely related topic

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

• A guided tour to approximate string matching

  Gonzalo Navarro · 2001 · ACM Computing Surveys · 1,803 citations

• Algorithms for approximate string matching

  Esko Ukkonen · 1985 · Information and Control · 422 citations

• The stringdist Package for Approximate String Matching

  Mark,P.J.,van,der Loo · 2014 · The R Journal · 388 citations

• Approximate String Matching

  Patrick A. V. Hall, Geoff R. Dowling · 1980 · ACM Computing Surveys · 379 citations

• Fast parallel and serial approximate string matching

  Gad M Landau, Uzi Vishkin · 1989 · Journal of Algorithms · 235 citations

• Sublinear approximate string matching and biological applications

  W. I. Chang, E. L. Lawler · 1994 · Algorithmica · 115 citations

• Faster Approximate String Matching

  R. Baeza-Yates and G. Navarro · 1999 · Algorithmica · 111 citations

• An Improved Algorithm For Approximate String Matching

  Zvi Galil, Kunsoo Park · 1990 · SIAM Journal on Computing · 107 citations

🆕 Influential since 2022

• A weak approach to suffix automata simulation for exact and approximate string matching

  Simone Faro, Stefano Scafiti · 2022 · Theoretical Computer Science · 5 citations

• Space-efficient computation of parallel approximate string matching

  Muhammad Umair Sadiq, Muhammad Murtaza Yousaf · 2023 · The Journal of Supercomputing · 4 citations

• Alignment-free comparison of metagenomics sequences via approximate string matching

  Jian Chen, Le Yang, Lu Li · 2022 · Bioinformatics Advances · 4 citations

• SeArcH schemes for Approximate stRing mAtching

  Simon Gene Gottlieb, Knut Reinert · 2025 · NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics · 3 citations

• Approximate String Matching with Non-Overlapping Adjacent Unbalanced Translocations

  Domenico Cantone, Simone Faro, Arianna Pavone · 2025 · Mathematics · 0 citations

📚 Books worth reading

• Introduction to AlgorithmsThomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson · 1990
• The Conspirators HierarchyJohn Coleman · 1992
• Algorithm designMichael T. Goodrich, Roberto Tamassia · 2001
• Emerging Technologies for Information Systems, Computing, and ManagementW. Eric Wong · 2013
• Efficient parallel and serial approximate string matchingGad M. Landau · 1986
• Algorithm Design and ApplicationsMichael T. Goodrich, Roberto Tamassia · 2014
• Computational intelligence in image processingAmitava Chatterjee, Patrick Siarry · 2013
• Approximate string matching applied to response analysis in computer assisted instructionJohn Cale Nesbit · 1983

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics

• Bitap algorithm The bitap algorithm (also known as the shift-or, shift-and or Baeza-Yates–Gonnet algorithm) is an approximate string matching algorithm. The algorithm…
• Levenshtein distance In information theory, linguistics, and computer science, the Levenshtein distance is a string metric for measuring the difference between two sequences…
• Wagner–Fischer algorithm In computer science, the Wagner–Fischer algorithm is a dynamic programming algorithm that computes the edit distance between two strings of characters…
• Edit distance In computational linguistics and computer science, edit distance is a string metric, i.e. a way of quantifying how dissimilar two strings (e.g., words)…
• Rabin–Karp algorithm In computer science, the Rabin–Karp algorithm or Karp–Rabin algorithm is a string-searching algorithm created by Richard M. Karp and Michael O. Rabin (1987)…
• String-searching algorithm A string-searching algorithm, sometimes called string-matching algorithm, is an algorithm that searches a body of text for portions that match by pattern…
• Boyer–Moore string-search algorithm In computer science, the Boyer–Moore string-search algorithm is an efficient string-searching algorithm that is the standard benchmark for practical string-sear…
• Gestalt pattern matching Gestalt pattern matching, also Ratcliff/Obershelp pattern recognition, is a string-matching algorithm for determining the similarity of two strings. It…