(Un)Decidability Results for Word Equations with Length and Regular Expression Constraints

We prove several decidability and undecidability results for the satisfiability and validity problems for languages that can express solutions to word equations with length constraints. The atomic formulas over this language are equality over string terms (word equations), linear inequality over the length function (length constraints), and membership in regular sets. These questions are important in logic, program analysis, and formal verification. Variants of these questions have been studied for many decades by mathematicians. More recently, practical satisfiability procedures (aka SMT solvers) for these formulas have become increasingly important in the context of security analysis for string-manipulating programs such as web applications. We prove three main theorems. First, we give a new proof of undecidability for the validity problem for the set of sentences written as a forall-exists quantifier alternation applied to positive word equations. A corollary of this undecidability result is that this set is undecidable even with sentences with at most two occurrences of a string variable. Second, we consider Boolean combinations of quantifier-free formulas constructed out of word equations and length constraints. We show that if word equations can be converted to a solved form, a form relevant in practice, then the satisfiability problem for Boolean combinations of word equations and length constraints is decidable. Third, we show that the satisfiability problem for quantifier-free formulas over word equations in regular solved form, length constraints, and the membership predicate over regular expressions is also decidable.Comment: Invited Paper at ADDCT Workshop 2013 (co-located with CADE 2013

Admissibility in Finitely Generated Quasivarieties

Checking the admissibility of quasiequations in a finitely generated (i.e., generated by a finite set of finite algebras) quasivariety Q amounts to checking validity in a suitable finite free algebra of the quasivariety, and is therefore decidable. However, since free algebras may be large even for small sets of small algebras and very few generators, this naive method for checking admissibility in \Q is not computationally feasible. In this paper, algorithms are introduced that generate a minimal (with respect to a multiset well-ordering on their cardinalities) finite set of algebras such that the validity of a quasiequation in this set corresponds to admissibility of the quasiequation in Q. In particular, structural completeness (validity and admissibility coincide) and almost structural completeness (validity and admissibility coincide for quasiequations with unifiable premises) can be checked. The algorithms are illustrated with a selection of well-known finitely generated quasivarieties, and adapted to handle also admissibility of rules in finite-valued logics

Querying the Guarded Fragment

Evaluating a Boolean conjunctive query Q against a guarded first-order theory F is equivalent to checking whether "F and not Q" is unsatisfiable. This problem is relevant to the areas of database theory and description logic. Since Q may not be guarded, well known results about the decidability, complexity, and finite-model property of the guarded fragment do not obviously carry over to conjunctive query answering over guarded theories, and had been left open in general. By investigating finite guarded bisimilar covers of hypergraphs and relational structures, and by substantially generalising Rosati's finite chase, we prove for guarded theories F and (unions of) conjunctive queries Q that (i) Q is true in each model of F iff Q is true in each finite model of F and (ii) determining whether F implies Q is 2EXPTIME-complete. We further show the following results: (iii) the existence of polynomial-size conformal covers of arbitrary hypergraphs; (iv) a new proof of the finite model property of the clique-guarded fragment; (v) the small model property of the guarded fragment with optimal bounds; (vi) a polynomial-time solution to the canonisation problem modulo guarded bisimulation, which yields (vii) a capturing result for guarded bisimulation invariant PTIME.Comment: This is an improved and extended version of the paper of the same title presented at LICS 201