Method of efficiently parsing a file for a plurality of strings

摘要

A preferred embodiment of the method of the present invention parses a large computer file for a selected set of target strings in a manner whereby computing power is conserved and parsing speed is increased. The method parses for the selected set of target strings by initially writing a comprehensive regular expression that will return a match if any component of the target strings in the set are present in a line of the computer file. If a regular expression match is made in a line, string comparisons for all of the strings in the set of target strings are run for the line. The preferred embodiment preferably generates a log of all positive string comparisons that are made in the file.