前缀集：prefix set

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Let $X$ be a set, and $w ∈ X^∗$ be a word, i.e. an element of the free monoid on $X$. A word $v∈X^∗$ is called prefix of $w$ when a second word $z∈X^∗$ exists such that $x=vz$. A proper prefix of a word $u$ is a prefix $v$ of $u$ not equal to $u$ (sometimes $v$ is required to be non-empty).
Note that the empty word $ε$ and $w$ are prefix of $w$, and a proper prefix of $w$ if $w$ is non-empty.
The prefix set of $w$ is the set $pref(w)$ of prefixes of $w$, i.e. if $w = w_1w_2...w_n$ with $w_j ∈ X$ for each $j ∈ {1,...,n}$ we have

$$pref(w) = {ε, w1, w1w2, ..., w1w2...wn−1, w}.$$ Some closely related concepts are:
1. A set of words is prefix closed if for every word in the set, any of its prefix is also in the set.
2. The prefix closure of a set S is the smallest prefix closed set containing S, or, equivalently, the union of the prefix sets of words in S.
3. A set S is prefix free if for any word in S, no proper prefixes of the word are in S.

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