On-line construction of a small automaton for a finite set of words

In this paper we describe a ``light'' algorithm for the on-line constructionof a small automaton recognising a finite set of words.The algorithm runs in linear time.We carried out good experimental results on thesuffixes of a text, showing how this automaton is small. For thesuffixes of a text, we propose a modified construction that leadsto an even smaller automaton.