1. A computer-implemented method for searching a collection of machine readable digital data, the method comprising: a computer receiving a given search word; the computer evaluating the search word against some or all words in a table, said table having rows and columns, each word residing in a different row and each letter of the word occupying a different column in that row, where the words are stored so as to preserve order of the letters within the words, and where each contiguous run of same letters in a column forms an interval, and such that the lengths of the intervals are maximized to facilitate data searching, the evaluating operation comprising: for each target word in the table to which the search word is being evaluated, comparing, one letter at a time, letters of the search word to corresponding letters of the target word as represented by the columns in the table; upon completing the evaluating operation without finding a successful match, providing an output representing a failed match.
1. A computer-implemented method for searching a collection of machine readable digital data, the method comprising: a computer receiving a given search word; the computer evaluating the search word against some or all words in a table, said table having rows and columns, each word residing in a different row and each letter of the word occupying a different column in that row, where the words are stored so as to preserve order of the letters within the words, and where each contiguous run of same letters in a column forms an interval, and such that the lengths of the intervals are maximized to facilitate data searching, the evaluating operation comprising: for each target word in the table to which the search word is being evaluated, comparing, one letter at a time, letters of the search word to corresponding letters of the target word as represented by the columns in the table; upon completing the evaluating operation without finding a successful match, providing an output representing a failed match. 5. The method of claim 1 , where: the table further includes metadata identifying rows below which no occurrences of words of various letter lengths occur in the table; the operations comprise concluding the comparing operation at a row below which there are no remaining occurrences of words with same length in letters as the search word.