System and method for string processing and searching using a compressed permuterm index

An improved system and method for string processing and searching using a compressed permuterm index is provided. To build a compressed permuterm index for a string dictionary, an index builder constructs a unique string from a collection of strings of a dictionary sorted in lexicographic order and then builds a compressed permuterm index to support queries over the unique string. A dictionary query engine supports several types of wild-card queries over the string dictionary by performing a backward search modified with a CyclicLF operation over the compressed permuterm index. These queries may used to implement other queries including a membership query, a prefix query, a suffix query, a prefix-suffix query, a query for an exact or substring match, a rank query, a select query and so forth. String processing and searching tasks may accurately be performed for sophisticated queries in optimal time and compressed space.