New algorithms for pattern matching with wildcards and length constraints

Abstract

The pattern matching with wildcards and length constraints problem is an interesting problem in the literature whose computational complexity is still open. There are polynomial time exact algorithms for its special cases. There are heuristic algorithms, and online algorithms that do not guarantee an optimal solution to the original problem. We consider two special cases of the problem for which we develop offline solutions. We give an algorithm for one case with provably better worst case time complexity compared to existing algorithms. We present the first exact algorithm for the second case. This algorithm uses integer linear programming (ILP) and it takes polynomial time under certain conditions.