Experimental Analysis of a Fast Intersection Algorithm for Sorted Sequences

This work presents an experimental comparison of intersection algorithms for sorted sequences, including the recent algorithm of Baeza-Yates. This algorithm performs on average less comparisons than the total number of elements of both inputs (n and m respectively) when n=αm (α 1). We can find applications of this algorithm on query processing in Web search engines, where large intersections, or differences, must be performed fast. In this work we concentrate in studying the behavior of the algorithm in practice, using for the experiments test data that is close to the actual conditions of its applications. We compare the efficiency of the algorithm with other intersection algorithm and we study different optimizations, showing that the algorithm is more efficient than the alternatives in most cases, especially when one of the sequences is much larger than the other.