System and method for mining sequential patterns in a large database

摘要

A system and method for mining databases includes a computer- implemented program which identifies patterns of transaction sequences that are stored in a database and which recur in the database with a user- defined regularity. The invention first identifies which sequences are large, i.e., which recur with the defined regularity, and then determines which sequences are maximal, i.e., which large sequences are not subsets of other large sequences. The set of maximal large sequences is returned to the user to indicate recurring purchasing patterns over time.