History-Register Automata

Programs with dynamic allocation are able to create and use an unbounded number of fresh resources, such as references, objects, files, etc. We propose History-Register Automata (HRA), a new automata-theoretic formalism for modelling such programs. HRAs extend the expressiveness of previous approach...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Logical methods in computer science 2016-03, Vol.12, Issue 1
Main Authors: Grigore, Radu, Tzevelekos, Nikos
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
computer science - formal languages and automata theory
computer science - programming languages
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Summary:Programs with dynamic allocation are able to create and use an unbounded number of fresh resources, such as references, objects, files, etc. We propose History-Register Automata (HRA), a new automata-theoretic formalism for modelling such programs. HRAs extend the expressiveness of previous approaches and bring us to the limits of decidability for reachability checks. The distinctive feature of our machines is their use of unbounded memory sets (histories) where input symbols can be selectively stored and compared with symbols to follow. In addition, stored symbols can be consumed or deleted by reset. We show that the combination of consumption and reset capabilities renders the automata powerful enough to imitate counter machines, and yields closure under all regular operations apart from complementation. We moreover examine weaker notions of HRAs which strike different balances between expressiveness and effectiveness.
ISSN:1860-5974
1860-5974
DOI:10.2168/LMCS-12(1:7)2016