--- branches/hidra/doc/exact_match.txt 2004/04/04 22:09:57 302
+++ branches/hidra/doc/exact_match.txt 2004/04/04 22:11:13 303
@@ -27,3 +27,30 @@
+
+What are bit-masks?
+
+Bit-mask is usage of one byte (8 bits) as 8 separate bits with it's own
+meaning (this is simplification, but bear with me for now).
+
+So, 1 = 2^0, thus it's bit 1. With analogy, 2=2^1 and 3=2^0+2^1.
+So, for 1-3 we use two bits and have:
+
+number bits
+1 01 (just begin bit set)
+2 10 (just end bit set)
+3 11 (begin and end bit set)
+
+Thus, with two bits (and values 1-3) we can express should we exact match from
+beginning, end or both. For wild-card match, we use additional bit 3 (2^3 = 4)
+so we have:
+
+number bits exact match
+1 001 begin
+2 010 end
+3 011 begin+end
+4 100 (not used)
+5 101 (4+1) begin+wild-card
+6 110 (4+2) end+wild-card
+7 111 (4+3) begin+end+wild-card
+