Patent ID: 6978044

Claim:
A character string matching apparatus for effecting a process for matching between a first character string, which comprises a plurality of characters as a result of a recognition of characters, and a second character string, which comprises a plurality of characters stored in a dictionary in advance, comprising: a first table comprising a matrix of cells of rows and columns for specifying types of the characters appearing in the first character string and orders of the characters appearing in the first character string; a second table comprising a one-row memory for voting for each second character sting, in which a calculated value of each of the components of various types of second character strings to be matched with respect to the first character string in the direction of the second character string is stored, the second table is provided with a link for the first table based on the type of each character in the second character string and the orders of appearance and types of the characters specified by the first table, wherein the link indicates the memory address of the voting position in the second table; voting means for casting a vote to the second table with respect to each of the characters of the first character string which has been input based on a correspondency of the first table with the second table; and determining means for determining whether or not the first character string and the second character string are matched based on a result of voting to the second table as a result of the voting by said voting by the voting means executed with respect to all of the characters of the first character string.