Minimizing Tree Automata for Unranked Trees

International audienceAutomata for unranked trees form a foundation for XML schemas, querying and pattern languages. We study the problem of efficiently minimizing such automata. We start with the unranked tree automata (UTAs) that are standard in database theory, assuming bottom-up determinism and that horizontal recursion is represented by deterministic finite automata. We show that minimal UTAs in that class are not unique and that minimization is NP-hard. We then study more recent automata classes that do allow for polynomial time minimization. Among those, we show that bottom-up deterministic stepwise tree automata yield the most succinct representations

Transformations Between Different Types of Unranked Bottom-Up Tree Automata

We consider the representational state complexity of unranked tree automata. The bottom-up computation of an unranked tree automaton may be either deterministic or nondeterministic, and further variants arise depending on whether the horizontal string languages defining the transitions are represented by a DFA or an NFA. Also, we consider for unranked tree automata the alternative syntactic definition of determinism introduced by Cristau et al. (FCT'05, Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 3623, pp. 68-79). We establish upper and lower bounds for the state complexity of conversions between different types of unranked tree automata.Comment: In Proceedings DCFS 2010, arXiv:1008.127

Streaming Tree Automata

International audienceStreaming validation and querying of XML documents are often based on automata for tree-like structures. We propose a new notion of streaming tree automata in order to unify the two main approaches, which have not been linked so far: automata for nested words or equivalently visibly pushdown automata, and respectively pushdown forest automata

Bounded repairability for regular tree languages

We study the problem of bounded repairability of a given restriction tree language R into a target tree language T. More precisely, we say that R is bounded repairable w.r.t. T if there exists a bound on the number of standard tree editing operations necessary to apply to any tree in R in order to obtain a tree in T. We consider a number of possible specifications for tree languages: bottom-up tree automata (on curry encoding of unranked trees) that capture the class of XML Schemas and DTDs. We also consider a special case when the restriction language R is universal, i.e., contains all trees over a given alphabet. We give an effective characterization of bounded repairability between pairs of tree languages represented with automata. This characterization introduces two tools, synopsis trees and a coverage relation between them, allowing one to reason about tree languages that undergo a bounded number of editing operations. We then employ this characterization to provide upper bounds to the complexity of deciding bounded repairability and we show that these bounds are tight. In particular, when the input tree languages are specified with arbitrary bottom-up automata, the problem is coNEXPTIME-complete. The problem remains coNEXPTIME-complete even if we use deterministic non-recursive DTDs to specify the input languages. The complexity of the problem can be reduced if we assume that the alphabet, the set of node labels, is fixed: the problem becomes PSPACE-complete for non-recursive DTDs and coNP-complete for deterministic non-recursive DTDs. Finally, when the restriction tree language R is universal, we show that the bounded repairability problem becomes EXPTIME-complete if the target language is specified by an arbitrary bottom-up tree automaton and becomes tractable (PTIME-complete, in fact) when a deterministic bottom-up automaton is used

Efficient Inclusion Checking for Deterministic Tree Automata and DTDs

International audienceWe present a new algorithm for testing language inclusion L(A) ⊆ L(B)L(A) between tree automata in time O(|A| |B|) where B is deterministic. We extend this algorithm for testing inclusion between automata for unranked trees A and deterministic DTDs D in time O(|A| |Σ| |D|). No previous algorithms with these complexities exist. A journal extension is available at http://hal.inria.fr/inria-00366082

Schema-Guided Induction of Monadic Queries

International audienceThe induction of monadic node selecting queries from partially annotated XML-trees is a key task in Web information extraction. We show how to integrate schema guidance into an RPNI-based learning algorithm, in which monadic queries are represented by pruning node selecting tree transducers. We present experimental results on schema guidance by the DTD of HTML

Logics for Unranked Trees: An Overview

Labeled unranked trees are used as a model of XML documents, and logical languages for them have been studied actively over the past several years. Such logics have different purposes: some are better suited for extracting data, some for expressing navigational properties, and some make it easy to relate complex properties of trees to the existence of tree automata for those properties. Furthermore, logics differ significantly in their model-checking properties, their automata models, and their behavior on ordered and unordered trees. In this paper we present a survey of logics for unranked trees

Bounded Delay and Concurrency for Earliest Query Answering

International audienceEarliest query answering is needed for streaming XML processing with optimal memory management. We study the feasibility of earliest query answering for node selection queries. Tractable queries are distinguished by a bounded number of concurrently alive answer candidates at every time point, and a bounded delay for node selection. We show that both properties are decidable in polynomial time for queries defined by deterministic automata for unranked trees. Our results are obtained by reduction to the bounded valuedness problem for recognizable relations between unranked trees

Learning n-ary Node Selecting Tree Transducers from Completely Annotated Examples

International audienceWe present the first algorithm for learning n-ary node selection queries in trees from completely annotated examples by methods of grammatical inference. We propose to represent n-ary queries by deterministic n-ary node selecting tree transducers (NSTTs), that are known to capture the class of MSO-definable n-ary queries. Despite of this highly expressive, we show that n-aryy queries, selecting a polynomially bounded number of tuples per tree, represented by deterministic NSTTs can be learned from polynomial time and data while allowing for efficient enumeration of query answers. An application to wrapper induction in Web information extraction yields encouraging results

Efficient Inclusion Checking for Deterministic Tree Automata and XML Schemas

Special issue of LATA'08.International audienceWe present algorithms for testing language inclusion L(A) ⊆ L(B) between tree automata in time O(|A| |B|) where B is deterministic (bottom-up or top-down). We extend our algorithms for testing inclusion of automata for unranked trees A in deterministic DTDs or deterministic EDTDs with restrained competition D in time O(|A| |Σ| |D|). Previous algorithms were less efficient or less general