viaFibersubstring

viaFibersubstring is a theoretical technique in string processing and data indexing that aims to accelerate substring queries by using a fiber-based decomposition of the input string. The approach treats the string as a collection of overlapping segments, or fibers, organized across multiple levels. Queries are resolved by traversing paths through this fiber structure and combining partial matches found within individual fibers.

The construction of viaFibersubstring begins with partitioning a string S of length n into levels of fibers F1, F2, ..., Fd with controlled overlaps. A fiber graph is then built, where nodes represent fiber instances and edges indicate that a substring can span adjacent fibers. An index is created for each fiber that records substrings wholly contained within the fiber as well as boundary substrings that connect neighboring fibers. The overall goal is to enable efficient assembly of candidate matches by aggregating information along traversed fiber paths.

Querying proceeds by mapping the pattern P onto potential paths in the fiber graph whose concatenation could yield P. The algorithm verifies actual occurrences along those paths and aggregates results, such as start positions or counts. The method emphasizes locality within fibers to reduce redundant checks and to exploit hierarchical organization in the data.

Performance characteristics are data-dependent. Preprocessing is typically more costly than simple linear indexes but can offer favorable query times for certain distributions or streaming scenarios. In favorable configurations, substring queries may be answered more efficiently than with traditional suffix-based structures, especially on large-scale or hierarchically organized data. Limitations include implementation complexity and potential overhead for small or highly repetitive datasets.

See also: substring search, suffix trees and arrays, hierarchical indexing.