This is my take on solving this (if I understand the spec right that is) using a finite state automaton to look for a specific arbitrary-length sequence of characters from a stream. It does not need to store any data at all except the string to look for and an array of bits of same length.

As an example the input stream is a seemingly infinite sequence of random numbers between 0 and 9.The sequence to detect is '0,1,2,3,4,5'.

For a seed of '123' this is encountered on the 151436th rand() call!

./detector.pl

<Reveal this spoiler or all in this thread>

In reply to Re: Algorithm inspiration required. by bliako
in thread Algorithm inspiration required. by BrowserUk

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