Suffix Tree

Synonyms

Compact suffix trie

Definition

The suffix tree $\mathcal {S}(y)$ of a nonempty string y of length n is a compact trie representing all the suffixes of the string.

The suffix tree of y is defined by the following properties:

• All branches of $\mathcal {S}(y)$ are labeled by all suffixes of y.

• Edges of $\mathcal {S}(y)$ are labeled by strings.

• Internal nodes of $\mathcal {S}(y)$ have at least two children.

• Edges outgoing an internal node are labeled by segments starting with different letters.

• The segments are represented by their starting position on y and their lengths.

Moreover, it is assumed that y ends with a symbol occurring nowhere else in it (the space sign ␣ is used in the examples of the present entry). This avoids marking nodes and implies that $\mathcal {S}(y)$ has exactly n leaves (number of nonempty suffixes).

All the properties then imply that the total size of $\mathcal {S}(y)$ is O(n), which makes it possible to design a linear-time construction of...