# Alfred–Margaret
Alfred–Margaret is a fast implementation of the Aho–Corasick string
searching algorithm in Haskell. It powers many string-related operations
in [Channable][channable].
The library is designed to work with the [`text`][text] package. It matches
directly on the internal UTF-16 representation of `Text` for efficiency. See the
[announcement blog post][blog-post] for a deeper dive into Aho–Corasick, and the
optimizations that make this library fast.
Alfred–Margaret is named after Alfred Aho and Margaret Corasick.
## Performance
Running time to count all matches, in a real-world data set,
comparing [a Java implementation][hankcs] and [a Rust implementation][burntsushi]
against Alfred–Margaret, and against memcopy to establish a lower bound:
<p align="center">
<img
title="Graph that shows that Alfred–Margaret is fast."
src="performance.png"
width="80%"
>
</p>
For the full details of this benchmark, see
[our announcement blog post][blog-post], which includes more details about the
data set, the benchmark setup, and a few things to keep in mind when
interpreting this graph.
### LLVM
If you are using LLVM instead of the GHC backend, make sure to compare different versions.
Using LLVM 9 instead of LLVM 12 with GHC 8.10.7 made a significant dent in benchmark times.
For more information, see [this issue][llvm].
## Example
Check if a string contains one of the needles:
```haskell
import qualified Data.Text.AhoCorasick.Automaton as Aho
import qualified Data.Text.AhoCorasick.Searcher as Searcher
searcher = Searcher.build Aho.CaseSensitive ["tshirt", "shirts", "shorts"]
Searcher.containsAny searcher "short tshirts"
> True
Searcher.containsAny searcher "long shirt"
> False
Searcher.containsAny searcher "Short TSHIRTS"
> False
searcher' = Searcher.build Aho.IgnoreCase ["tshirt", "shirts", "shorts"]
Searcher.containsAny searcher' "Short TSHIRTS"
> True
```
Sequentially replace many needles:
```haskell
import Data.Text.AhoCorasick.Automaton (CaseSensitivity (..))
import qualified Data.Text.AhoCorasick.Replacer as Replacer
replacer = Replacer.build CaseSensitive [("tshirt", "banana"), ("shirt", "pear")]
Replacer.run replacer "tshirts for sale"
> "bananas for sale"
Replacer.run replacer "tshirts and shirts for sale"
> "bananas and pears for sale"
Replacer.run replacer "sweatshirts and shirtshirts"
> "sweabananas and shirbananas"
Replacer.run replacer "sweatshirts and shirttshirts"
> "sweabananas and pearbananas"
```
Get all matches, possibly overlapping:
```haskell
import qualified Data.Text.AhoCorasick.Automaton as Aho
pairNeedleWithSelf text = (Aho.unpackUtf16 text, text)
automaton = Aho.build $ fmap pairNeedleWithSelf ["tshirt", "shirts", "shorts"]
allMatches = Aho.runText [] (\matches match -> Aho.Step (match : matches))
allMatches automaton "short tshirts"
> [ Match {matchPos = CodeUnitIndex 13, matchValue = "shirts"}
> , Match {matchPos = CodeUnitIndex 12, matchValue = "tshirt"}
> ]
allMatches automaton "sweatshirts and shirtshirts"
> [ Match {matchPos = CodeUnitIndex 27, matchValue = "shirts"}
> , Match {matchPos = CodeUnitIndex 26, matchValue = "tshirt"}
> , Match {matchPos = CodeUnitIndex 22, matchValue = "shirts"}
> , Match {matchPos = CodeUnitIndex 11, matchValue = "shirts"}
> , Match {matchPos = CodeUnitIndex 10, matchValue = "tshirt"}
> ]
```
## License
Alfred–Margaret is licensed under the 3-clause BSD license.
[channable]: https://www.channable.com/
[blog-post]: https://tech.channable.com/posts/2019-03-13-how-we-made-haskell-search-strings-as-fast-as-rust.html
[text]: https://github.com/haskell/text
[hankcs]: https://github.com/hankcs/AhoCorasickDoubleArrayTrie/tree/v1.2.0
[burntsushi]: https://github.com/BurntSushi/aho-corasick/tree/0.6.8
[llvm]: https://github.com/channable/alfred-margaret/issues/24