The answer to 'but why' use the Goedel numbering scheme is: gn(UV) = gn(U) * gn(V)
Concatenation in string-land becomes multiplication in number-land. In other words, you need to compute the signature of each string in the dataset exactly once. After that it's just one multiply per test. Your other solutions are computing the signatures of concatenated strings about (N^2)/2 times. The overall performance of both should be O(N^2). -- Michael Glass ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Unicon-group mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unicon-group