On Friday, October 29, 2010 00:30:51 Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 21:36 +0100, Marko Vojinovic wrote: > > But I've never heard of a processor that has a "search" instruction > > implemented in hardware. :-) > > Depends what you mean by hardware. I'm pretty sure some special-purpose > machines (Lisp and Prolog machines come to mind) had string searching in > microcode. Some VLSI designs for string-searching hardware come up if > you do a Google search (!) but I doubt if any have actually been > exploited commercially. Oh, I was referring to today's typical Intel compatible processors. The OP was asking about how is search being performed with common PC hardware, so my comments were in that scope. But you are right, surely some custom string-searching hardware has probably been developed and made, it can probably be very useful in situations with specific need for that type of functionality. :-) Best, :-) Marko -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines