Concept

Interval — where it appears

The pair of row numbers a backward search holds, being the rows whose suffixes begin with the pattern so far. It narrows by two ranks a character and performs no character comparison at all; a bidirectional search holds two of them and requires them to stay the same width.

Named by 5 essays across 3 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

1234567characters addedoccurrencesgrown leftwardsgrown rightwards"tgatatt"4,000 characters · four symbols1 occurrences

An interval that grows at both ends

A backward search step is two ranks. A bidirectional step is two ranks and the width of the interval for every symbol that sorts before the one being added — 16.5 ranks on four symbols and 138.6 on twenty-six, which is a cost no account of the structure mentions.

indexes · Distance
right to left8302.74xleft to right8772.89xone per piece4471.48xthe scheme3031.00xinterval extensionsall four found the same 6 positions15 characters · k = 22.74x apart

The search that starts in the middle

The same pattern, the same six occurrences, the same index — and 830 interval extensions, or 303, according to which end the search begins at. A pattern cut into three pieces has an error-free one, and only a search with two ends can start there.

text · Distance
forward · wavelet tree18,377forward · rank directories5,037forward · C table100forward · sample marks8,193forward · sampled positions3,598reverse · wavelet tree18,377reverse · rank directories5,037reverse · C table100reverse · sample marks8,193droppedreverse · sampled positions3,598dropped8,192 characters · sampling every 3216.7% of both halves

The half that is never asked where

A bidirectional index is two indexes and one interval. One of them is asked for ranks several hundred times a search and for a position never — and the parts that answer "where" are two of the five it is made of.

indexes · Distance
forward · wavelet tree18,377forward · rank directories5,037forward · C table100forward · sample marks8,193forward · sampled positions3,598reverse · wavelet tree18,377reverse · rank directories5,037reverse · C table100reverse · sample marks8,193droppedreverse · sampled positions3,598dropped8,192 characters · sampling every 3216.7% of both halves

An index that cannot locate

Take an FM-index, remove the sampled positions and the bit vector marking them, and refuse every request for a position. What is left still counts, still extends intervals, still runs a whole search — and is a third smaller.

space · Distance
level 0 · left335 keptlevel 1 · right+207 smallerlevel 2 · left61 keptlevel 3 · right+33 smallerlevel 4 · left8 keptpositions still in play, and the half the code leaves behindsmaller symbols before position 400: 240rank of "m": 8 — from the same 5 operationsσ 21 · code 010105 ranks, not 105

Every child at once

A bidirectional extension counts the occurrences of every symbol smaller than the one being added, and this collection did it with one rank per symbol — 139.7 operations an extension on a twenty-six-letter alphabet. One walk down the tree gives the same number.

indexes · Symbol

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Bidirectional indexBackward searchIndex sizeRankWavelet treeAlphabetFM-indexSearch schemeConstant factorLocateMeasurementSampling

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