1. A method of storing data in a memory circuit of an Aho-Corasick type character recognition automaton, the method comprising: storing a tree of nodes in a memory in which each node in the tree corresponds to a state of automaton; and operating a character recognition automation coupled to the memory circuit to perform the following recognizing character strings by implementing successive transitions in the tree of nodes in which each node in the tree corresponds to a state of the automaton; recognizing a sequence of each character string, with each node in the tree being associated with a transition vector used to determine at least one destination node of a transition in the tree of nodes; determining if transition vectors point to common destination addresses; combining the transition vectors to form a combination vector if the transition vectors do not point to a common destination address; and storing the nodes in the tree at memory addresses pointed to by the combination vector.