In this paper we present a simple linear-time algorithm constructing a
context-free grammar of size O(g log(N/g)) for the input string, where N is the
size of the input string and g the size of the optimal grammar generating this
string. The algorithm works for arbitrary size alphabets, but the running time
is linear assuming that the alphabet \Sigma of the input string can be
identified with numbers from {1, ..., N^c} for some constant c. Otherwise,
additional cost of O(n log|\Sigma|) is needed.
Algorithms with such approximation guarantees and running time are known, the
novelty of this paper is a particular simplicity of the algorithm as well as
the analysis of the algorithm, which uses a general technique of recompression
recently introduced by the author. Furthermore, contrary to the previous
results, this work does not use the LZ representation of the input string in
the construction, nor in the analysis.Comment: 22 pages, some many small improvements, to be submited to a journa
