Propagating regular membership with dashed strings

Roberto Amadini, Graeme Gange, Peter J. Stuckey

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference PaperResearchpeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Using dashed strings is an approach recently introduced in Constraint Programming (CP) to represent the domain of string variables, when solving combinatorial problems with string constraints. One of the most important string constraints is that of regular membership: regular (x, R) imposes string x to be a member of the regular language defined by automaton R. The regular constraint is useful for specifying complex constraints on fixed length finite sequences, and regularly appears in CP models. Dealing with regular is also desirable in software testing and verification, because regular expressions are often used in modern programming languages for pattern matching. In this paper, we define a regular propagator for dashed string solvers. We show that this propagator, implemented in the G-Strings solver, is substantially better than the current state-of-the-art. We also demonstrate that many regular constraints appearing in string solving benchmarks can actually be tackled by dashed strings solvers without explicitly using REGULAR.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPrinciples and Practice of Constraint Programming
Subtitle of host publication24th International Conference, CP 2018 Lille, France, August 27–31, 2018 Proceedings
EditorsJohn Hooker
Place of PublicationCham Switzerland
PublisherSpringer
Pages13-29
Number of pages17
ISBN (Electronic)9783319983349
ISBN (Print)9783319983332
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018
EventInternational Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming 2018 - Lille, France
Duration: 27 Aug 201831 Aug 2018
Conference number: 24th
http://cp2018.a4cp.org/

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science
PublisherSpringer
Volume11008
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming 2018
Abbreviated titleCP 2018
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityLille
Period27/08/1831/08/18
Internet address

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