From Ukkonen to McCreight and Weiner: A Unifying View of Linear-Time Suffix Tree Constructions

We review the linear time suffix tree constructions by Weiner, McCreight, and Ukkonen. We use the terminology of the most recent algorithm, Ukkonen's online construction, to explain its historic predecessors. This reveals relationships much closer than one would expect, since the three algorithms are based on rather different intuitive ideas. Moreover, it completely explains the dierences between these algorithms in terms of simplicity, efficiency, and implementation complexity