Four Sliding Windows Pattern Matching Algorithm (FSW)

Abstract

This paper presents an efficient pattern matching algorithm (FSW). FSW improves the searching process for a pattern in a text. It scans the text with the help of four sliding windows. The windows are equal to the length of the pattern, allowing multiple alignments in the searching process. The text is divided into two parts; each part is scanned from both sides simultaneously using two sliding windows. The four windows slide in parallel in both parts of the text. The comparisons done between the text and the pattern are done from both of the pattern sides in parallel. The conducted experiments show that FSW achieves the best overall results in the number of attempts and the number of character comparisons compared to the pattern matching algorithms: Two Sliding Windows (TSW), Enhanced Two Sliding Windows algorithm (ETSW) and Berry-Ravindran algorithm (BR). The best time case is calculated and found to be while the average case time complexity is .