scholarly journals From Finite Automata to Regular Expressions and Back—A Summary on Descriptional Complexity

2014 ◽  
Vol 151 ◽  
pp. 25-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann Gruber ◽  
Markus Holzer
Keyword(s):  
Finite Automata ◽  
Regular Expressions ◽  
Descriptional Complexity

THE COMPLEXITY OF REGULAR(-LIKE) EXPRESSIONS

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (07) ◽  
pp. 1533-1548 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARKUS HOLZER ◽  
MARTIN KUTRIB
Keyword(s):  
Computational Complexity ◽  
Finite Automata ◽  
Regular Expressions ◽  
Descriptional Complexity

We summarize results on the complexity of regular(-like) expressions and tour a fragment of the literature. In particular we focus on the descriptional complexity of the conversion of regular expressions to equivalent finite automata and vice versa, to the computational complexity of problems on regular-like expressions such as, e.g., membership, inequivalence, and non-emptiness of complement, and finally on the operation problem measuring the required size for transforming expressions with additional language operations (built-in or not) into equivalent ordinary regular expressions.

scholarly journals From Finite Automata to Regular Expressions and Back — A Summary on Descriptional Complexity

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (08) ◽  
pp. 1009-1040 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann Gruber ◽  
Markus Holzer
Keyword(s):  
Finite Automata ◽  
Upper And Lower Bounds ◽  
Regular Expressions ◽  
Average Case ◽  
Seminal Paper ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Complexity Bounds ◽  
Descriptional Complexity ◽  
Elimination Algorithm ◽  
Interesting Special Case

The equivalence of finite automata and regular expressions dates back to the seminal paper of Kleene on events in nerve nets and finite automata from 1956. In the present paper we tour a fragment of the literature and summarize results on upper and lower bounds on the conversion of finite automata to regular expressions and vice versa. As an interesting special case also one-unambiguous regular expressions, a sort of a deterministic version of a regular expression, are considered. We also briefly recall the known bounds for the removal of spontaneous transitions (ε-transitions) on non-ε-free nondeter-ministic devices. Moreover, we report on recent results on the average case descriptional complexity bounds for the conversion of regular expressions to finite automata and new developments on the state elimination algorithm that converts finite automata to regular expressions.

NONDETERMINISTIC BIAUTOMATA AND THEIR DESCRIPTIONAL COMPLEXITY

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (07) ◽  
pp. 837-855
Author(s):  
MARKUS HOLZER ◽  
SEBASTIAN JAKOBI
Keyword(s):  
Head Movement ◽  
Blow Up ◽  
Finite Automata ◽  
Regular Languages ◽  
Regular Expressions ◽  
Descriptional Complexity

We investigate the descriptional complexity of nondeterministic biautomata, which are a generalization of biautomata [O. KLÍMA, L. POLÁK: On biautomata. RAIRO — Theor. Inf. Appl., 46(4), 2012]. Simply speaking, biautomata are finite automata reading the input from both sides; although the head movement is nondeterministic, additional requirements enforce biautomata to work deterministically. First we study the size blow-up when determinizing nondeterministic biautomata. Further, we give tight bounds on the number of states for nondeterministic biautomata accepting regular languages relative to the size of ordinary finite automata, regular expressions, and syntactic monoids. It turns out that as in the case of ordinary finite automata nondeterministic biautomata are superior to biautomata with respect to their relative succinctness in representing regular languages.

scholarly journals Software Toolchain for Large-Scale RE-NFA Construction on FPGA

2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Hua E. Yang ◽  
Viktor K. Prasanna
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regular Expression ◽  
Finite Automata ◽  
Fixed Number ◽  
Regular Expressions ◽  
Pattern Complexity ◽  
Regular Expression Matching ◽  
Area Increase ◽  
Prototype Software

We present a software toolchain for constructing large-scaleregular expression matching(REM) on FPGA. The software automates the conversion of regular expressions into compact and high-performance nondeterministic finite automata (RE-NFA). Each RE-NFA is described as an RTL regular expression matching engine (REME) in VHDL for FPGA implementation. Assuming a fixed number of fan-out transitions per state, ann-statem-bytes-per-cycle RE-NFA can be constructed inO(n×m)time andO(n×m)memory by our software. A large number of RE-NFAs are placed onto a two-dimensionalstaged pipeline, allowing scalability to thousands of RE-NFAs with linear area increase and little clock rate penalty due to scaling. On a PC with a 2 GHz Athlon64 processor and 2 GB memory, our prototype software constructs hundreds of RE-NFAs used by Snort in less than 10 seconds. We also designed a benchmark generator which can produce RE-NFAs with configurable pattern complexity parameters, including state count, state fan-in, loop-back and feed-forward distances. Several regular expressions with various complexities are used to test the performance of our RE-NFA construction software.

Descriptional Complexity of the Forever Operator

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (01) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Hospodár ◽  
Galina Jirásková ◽  
Peter Mlynárčik
Keyword(s):  
Regular Language ◽  
Finite Automata ◽  
Deterministic Finite Automata ◽  
State Complexity ◽  
Descriptional Complexity ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Number Formula ◽  
Deterministic Automata ◽  
Initial States ◽  
Nondeterministic State

We examine the descriptional complexity of the forever operator, which assigns the language [Formula: see text] to a regular language [Formula: see text], and we investigate the trade-offs between various models of finite automata. We consider complete and partial deterministic finite automata, nondeterministic finite automata with single or multiple initial states, alternating, and Boolean finite automata. We assume that the argument and the result of this operation are accepted by automata belonging to one of these six models. We investigate all possible trade-offs and provide a tight upper bound for 32 of 36 of them. The most interesting result is the trade-off from nondeterministic to deterministic automata given by the Dedekind number [Formula: see text]. We also prove that the nondeterministic state complexity of [Formula: see text] is [Formula: see text] which solves an open problem stated by Birget [The state complexity of [Formula: see text] and its connection with temporal logic, Inform. Process. Lett. 58 (1996) 185–188].

scholarly journals Extended to multi-tilde–bar regular expressions and efficient finite automata constructions

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 58-70
Author(s):  
Faissal Ouardi ◽  
Jean-Marc Champarnaud ◽  
Djelloul Ziadi
Keyword(s):  
Finite Automata ◽  
Regular Expressions

ANTIMIROV AND MOSSES'S REWRITE SYSTEM REVISITED

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (04) ◽  
pp. 669-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCO ALMEIDA ◽  
NELMA MOREIRA ◽  
ROGÉRIO REIS
Keyword(s):  
Finite Automata ◽  
Functional Approach ◽  
Regular Expressions ◽  
Average Case ◽  
Deterministic Finite Automata ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Functional Version ◽  
Comparative Results ◽  
Rewrite System ◽  
Extended Regular Expressions

Antimirov and Mosses proposed a rewrite system for deciding the equivalence of two (extended) regular expressions. They argued that this method could lead to a better average-case algorithm than those based on the comparison of the equivalent minimal deterministic finite automata. In this paper we present a functional approach to that method, prove its correctness, and give some experimental comparative results. Besides an improved functional version of Antimirov and Mosses's algorithm, we present an alternative one using partial derivatives. Our preliminary results lead to the conclusion that, indeed, these methods are feasible and, most of the time, faster than the classical methods.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document