On the generating sequences of regular languages on k symbols

  • Authors:
  • Marie-Pierre Béal;Dominique Perrin

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Marne-la-Vallée, France;University of Marne-la-Vallée, France

  • Venue:
  • Journal of the ACM (JACM)
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

The main result is a characterization of the generating sequences of the length of words in a regular language on k symbols. We say that a sequence s of integers is regular if there is a finite graph G with two vertices i, t such that sn is the number of paths of length n from i to t in G. Thus the generating sequence of a regular language is regular. We prove that a sequence s is the generating sequence of a regular language on k symbols if and only if both sequences s = (sn)n≥0 and t = (kn − sn)n≥0 are regular.