GNU Go Documentation
13. The DFA pattern matcher
In this chapter, we describe the principles of the gnugo DFA
pattern matcher. The aim of this system is to permit a fast
pattern matching when it becomes time critical like in owl
module (15.1 The Owl Code). Since GNU Go 3.2, this is enabled
by default. You can still get back the traditional pattern matcher
by running configure --disable-dfa and then recompiling
GNU Go.
Otherwise, a finite state machine called a Deterministic Finite
State Automaton (13.0.2 What is a DFA) will be built off line from the
pattern database. This is used at runtime to speedup pattern matching
(13.0.3 Pattern matching with DFA and 13.0.5 Incremental Algorithm). The
runtime speedup is at the cost of an increase in memory use and
compile time.
