Some Approaches to Best-Match File Searching The problem of searching the set of keys in a file to find a key which is closest to a given query key is discussed. After "closest," in terms of a metric on the the key space, is suitably defined, three file structures are presented together with their corresponding search algorithms, which are intended to reduce the number of comparisons required to achieve the desired result. These methods are derived using certain inequalities satisfied by metrics and by graph-theoretic concepts. Some empirical results are presented which compare the efficiency of the methods. CACM April, 1973 Burkhard, W. A. Keller, R. M. matching, file structuring, file searching, heuristics, best match 3.73 3.79 4.9 CA730404 JB January 24, 1978 9:54 AM 1676 4 2524 1682 4 2524 1728 4 2524 1860 4 2524 1973 4 2524 2018 4 2524 2032 4 2524 2033 4 2524 2107 4 2524 2109 4 2524 2203 4 2524 2251 4 2524 2359 4 2524 2524 4 2524 2543 4 2524 2552 4 2524 2559 4 2524 2991 4 2524 3053 4 2524 1785 5 2524 2524 5 2524 2524 5 2524 2524 5 2524 2575 5 2524 2966 5 2524 3134 5 2524 1976 6 2524 2160 6 2524 2524 6 2524 2524 6 2524 2524 6 2524 2990 6 2524