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Certified superstring packaging library
Edition: 8 October 2026. Initial decision: Conditional engineering. The product interpretation and pricing are hypotheses; independent proof and buyer validation remain open.
Research finding
The paper claims a deterministic two-approximation for shortest common superstring on explicitly represented ordinary strings. The guarantee belongs to its constructed algorithm and does not extend to classical maximum-overlap greedy.
Problem and buyer
A software team storing many overlapping literal strings may want a compact shared representation with a known worst-case length bound, rather than an unqualified greedy guarantee.
What the finding could enable
A library could pack literals and attach a verified containment map for every input. The new backend may strengthen a compression component if storage or transfer savings exceed indexing and construction overhead.
Technical and commercial limits
Symbol-length savings differ from compressed byte savings. Multi-byte alphabets, metadata and downstream compression affect the economics. Genome assembly introduces errors and biological ambiguity beyond ordinary superstrings.
Minimal architecture
Explicit-string input -> deduplication and contained-string preprocessing -> theorem-specific algorithm -> containment verification -> offsets and export. Track total input and output bytes alongside symbol counts.
Existing alternatives and differentiation
Greedy packers and general compression are practical baselines. A two-factor bound alone may be weaker than their typical outcomes; benchmark complete serialized artifacts.
Monetization hypothesis
Hypothesis: a supported library or integration for a high-volume literal-packaging workflow. Standalone subscription demand appears weak without a narrow recurring storage cost.
Validation experiment
Enumerate exact optima for small collections and compare with greedy and compression baselines on representative literal corpora. Verify every string remains a contiguous substring.
Conditions to reject or defer
Reject if metadata overhead cancels savings or existing compression dominates total cost and latency.
Next concrete action
Extract the actual constructed algorithm and separate it from maximum-overlap greedy before implementation.
Source evidence
Repository sources are pinned to revision fd4aeeb2ee4fc729c18d98444fed42fd0529eeeb. Selected scope notes and manuscript statements have been reviewed to the extent described above; these links do not represent successful kernel checks.
Family 128
Subject: A factor-two approximation for shortest common superstring.