Abstract: Provided is a computer implemented method for suggesting one or more candidate words from a list of words based on an input string received at an electronic device. Preferably, the list of words comprises an ordered list of words. The method comprises a first step of providing an array in memory for receiving edit distance values between initial substrings of the input string and initial substrings of each word in a set of some or all of the words in the list of words. The method includes applying an edit distance algorithm comparing a selected word to a received input string in order to obtain the aforementioned edit distance values. The selected word may comprise an empty string of no characters.

Abstract: Provided is a computer implemented method, device and system for suggesting one or more multi-word candidates based on an input string of characters received at an electronic device. The method comprises the steps of a) for each of a plurality of n selected parts of a received input string, selecting m candidate words from a fixed dictionary of q words, where n, m and q each comprise positive integers, n is greater than or equal to 2 and m is less than q; and b) selecting from the resultant mn combinations of candidate words a subset p of candidate combinations of words where p is a positive integer and p is less than mn. In some embodiments, the multi-word candidates can be resolved to respective unique geographical locations and a subset of the multi-word candidates or their resolved geographical locations can be presented at the electronic device for user selection.