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