A Review on the Tree Edit Distance Problem and Related Path-Decomposition Algorithms

Abstract: An ordered labeled tree is a tree in which the nodes are labeled and the left-to-right order among siblings is relevant. The edit distance between two ordered labeled trees is the minimum cost of changing one tree into the other through a sequence of edit steps. In the literature, there are a class of algorithms based on different yet closely related path-decomposition schemes. This article reviews the principles of these algorithms, and studies the concepts related to the algorithmic complexities as a consequence of the decomposition schemes.