ONLINE CONSTRUCTION OF SUFFIX TREES

An on-line algorithm is presented for constructing the suffix tree for a given string in time linear in the length of the string. The new algorithm has the desirable property of processing the string symbol by symbol from left to right. It always has the suffix tree for the scanned part of the string ready. The method is developed as a linear-time version of a very simple algorithm for (quadratic size) suffix tries. Regardless of its quadratic worst case this latter algorithm can be a good practical method when the string is not too long. Another variation of this method is shown to give, ina natural way, the well-known algorithms for constructing suffix automata (DAWGs).