On Complementation of Nondeterministic Finite Automata without Full Determinization (Technical Report)

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Holík, Lukáš, Lengál, Ondřej, Major, Juraj, Štěpková, Adéla, Strejček, Jan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Holík, Lukáš
Lengál, Ondřej
Major, Juraj
Štěpková, Adéla
Strejček, Jan
author_facet Holík, Lukáš
Lengál, Ondřej
Major, Juraj
Štěpková, Adéla
Strejček, Jan
contents Complementation of finite automata is a basic operation used in numerous applications. The standard way to complement a nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) is to transform it into an equivalent deterministic finite automaton (DFA) and complement the DFA. The DFA can, however, be exponentially larger than the corresponding NFA. In this paper, we study several alternative approaches to complementation, which are based either on reverse powerset construction or on two novel constructions that exploit a commonly occurring structure of NFAs. Our experiment on a large data set shows that using a different than the classical approach can in many cases yield significantly smaller complements.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_03439
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On Complementation of Nondeterministic Finite Automata without Full Determinization (Technical Report)
Holík, Lukáš
Lengál, Ondřej
Major, Juraj
Štěpková, Adéla
Strejček, Jan
Formal Languages and Automata Theory
Logic in Computer Science
Complementation of finite automata is a basic operation used in numerous applications. The standard way to complement a nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) is to transform it into an equivalent deterministic finite automaton (DFA) and complement the DFA. The DFA can, however, be exponentially larger than the corresponding NFA. In this paper, we study several alternative approaches to complementation, which are based either on reverse powerset construction or on two novel constructions that exploit a commonly occurring structure of NFAs. Our experiment on a large data set shows that using a different than the classical approach can in many cases yield significantly smaller complements.
title On Complementation of Nondeterministic Finite Automata without Full Determinization (Technical Report)
topic Formal Languages and Automata Theory
Logic in Computer Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03439