347 research outputs found
State Elimination Ordering Strategies: Some Experimental Results
Recently, the problem of obtaining a short regular expression equivalent to a
given finite automaton has been intensively investigated. Algorithms for
converting finite automata to regular expressions have an exponential blow-up
in the worst-case. To overcome this, simple heuristic methods have been
proposed.
In this paper we analyse some of the heuristics presented in the literature
and propose new ones. We also present some experimental comparative results
based on uniform random generated deterministic finite automata.Comment: In Proceedings DCFS 2010, arXiv:1008.127
From Finite Automata to Regular Expressions and Back--A Summary on Descriptional Complexity
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. We also briefly recall the known bounds for the
removal of spontaneous transitions (epsilon-transitions) on non-epsilon-free
nondeterministic devices. Moreover, we report on recent results on the average
case descriptional complexity bounds for the conversion of regular expressions
to finite automata and brand new developments on the state elimination
algorithm that converts finite automata to regular expressions.Comment: In Proceedings AFL 2014, arXiv:1405.527
Partial Derivative Automaton for Regular Expressions with Shuffle
We generalize the partial derivative automaton to regular expressions with
shuffle and study its size in the worst and in the average case. The number of
states of the partial derivative automata is in the worst case at most 2^m,
where m is the number of letters in the expression, while asymptotically and on
average it is no more than (4/3)^m
Quotient Complexity of Regular Languages
The past research on the state complexity of operations on regular languages
is examined, and a new approach based on an old method (derivatives of regular
expressions) is presented. Since state complexity is a property of a language,
it is appropriate to define it in formal-language terms as the number of
distinct quotients of the language, and to call it "quotient complexity". The
problem of finding the quotient complexity of a language f(K,L) is considered,
where K and L are regular languages and f is a regular operation, for example,
union or concatenation. Since quotients can be represented by derivatives, one
can find a formula for the typical quotient of f(K,L) in terms of the quotients
of K and L. To obtain an upper bound on the number of quotients of f(K,L) all
one has to do is count how many such quotients are possible, and this makes
automaton constructions unnecessary. The advantages of this point of view are
illustrated by many examples. Moreover, new general observations are presented
to help in the estimation of the upper bounds on quotient complexity of regular
operations
- …