English

An efficient algorithm to decide periodicity of b-recognisable sets using MSDF convention

Formal Languages and Automata Theory 2017-02-14 v1 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

Given an integer base b>1b>1, a set of integers is represented in base bb by a language over {0,1,...,b1}\{0,1,...,b-1\}. The set is said to be bb-recognisable if its representation is a regular language. It is known that eventually periodic sets are bb-recognisable in every base bb, and Cobham's theorem implies the converse: no other set is bb-recognisable in every base bb. We are interested in deciding whether a bb-recognisable set of integers (given as a finite automaton) is eventually periodic. Honkala showed that this problem decidable in 1986 and recent developments give efficient decision algorithms. However, they only work when the integers are written with the least significant digit first. In this work, we consider the natural order of digits (Most Significant Digit First) and give a quasi-linear algorithm to solve the problem in this case.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1702.03715,
  title  = {An efficient algorithm to decide periodicity of b-recognisable sets using MSDF convention},
  author = {Bernard Boigelot and Isabelle Mainz and Victor Marsault and Michel Rigo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1702.03715},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

17 pages, 9 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T18:16:39.437Z