9. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said database documents contain passages that are similar to said known passage.
6. An apparatus for retrieving documents from a database, comprising: an input device coupled to a processing unit for selecting a first text passage; a storage unit coupled to said processor unit for storing said database documents; wherein said processor unit identifies markers in said first text passage and represents the number of non-marker characters between markers in said first text passage to generate a first marker sequence; wherein said processor unit identifies markers in a plurality of documents from said database and represents the number of non-marker characters between markers in said plurality of documents from said database to generate a plurality of database marker sequences; and wherein said processor evaluates said first marker sequence against said plurality of database marker sequences to retrieve documents from said database.