DICTIONARY LOOK-UP WITHIN SMALL EDIT DISTANCE

Let [Formula: see text] be a dictionary consisting of n binary strings of length m each, represented as a trie. The usual d-query asks if there exists a string in [Formula: see text] within Hamming distance d of a given binary query string q. We present a simple algorithm to determine if there is a member in [Formula: see text] within edit distanced of a given query string q of length m. The method takes time O(dmd+1) in the RAM model, independent of n, and requires O(dm) additional space. We also generalize the results for the case of the problem over a larger alphabet.