http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyer%E2%80%93Moore_string_search_algorithm 1.Look for the first character of the shorter string inside the longer one. call this "i". 2. Check to see if the longString.charAt(shortString.length + i) char matches shortString.charAt(length) 3. if it doesn't, i = longString.charAt(shortString.length +i +1). This eliminates having to check every character in the string. 4. if it does match, you just have to check every char inbetween i and longString.charAt(shortString.length +i)