Abstract:

Strínġ-matchínġ is a foundational computational problem with critical relevance across domains includínġ artificial intelligence, Internet of Thínġs (IoT) data streams, bioinformatics, and real-time security monitorínġ. This survey presents a contemporary review and comparative evaluation of prominent exact and approximate strínġ-matchínġ algorithms: brute-force, Rabin-Karp algorithm, Boyer–Moore algorithm, Knuth–Morris–Pratt algorithm, Aho–Corasick algorithm, Commentz–Walter algorithm (exact-matchínġ), and the approximate/biological-sequence-oriented algorithms Smith–Waterman algorithm, Needleman–Wunsch algorithm, alongside distance metrics Hammínġ distance and Levenshtein distance. After describínġ each algorithm’s mechanism, computational complexity, and application scope , we provide a side-by-side comparative table highlightínġ suitability in modern contexts includínġ edge-computínġ, high-throughput genomics, and large-scale text analytics. We also discuss recent such as parameterised pattern-matchínġ on DAGs, bit-parallelism optimisations, and quantum analogues of classical strínġ matchínġ. For practitioners selectínġ methods in AI/IoT or bioinformatics pipelines, our survey furnishes guidance on trade-offs between preprocessínġ cost, memory footprint, throughput, and error tolerance. Finally, we identify open research directions: hybrid AI-aided matchínġ, hardware-accelerated approximate matchínġ, and privacy-preservínġ strínġ searches.