Creating an alternating automaton by adding states and transitions
Table of Contents
This example demonstrates how to create the following alternating
co-Büchi automaton (recognizing GFa) and then print it.
Note that the code is very similar to the previous example: in Spot an
alternating automaton is just an automaton that uses a mix of standard
edges (declared with new_edge()) and universal edges (declared with
new_univ_edge()).
C++
#include <iostream>
#include <spot/twaalgos/hoa.hh>
#include <spot/twa/twagraph.hh>
int main(void)
{
// The bdd_dict is used to maintain the correspondence between the
// atomic propositions and the BDD variables that label the edges of
// the automaton.
spot::bdd_dict_ptr dict = spot::make_bdd_dict();
// This creates an empty automaton that we have yet to fill.
spot::twa_graph_ptr aut = make_twa_graph(dict);
// Since a BDD is associated to every atomic proposition, the
// register_ap() function returns a BDD variable number that can be
// converted into a BDD using bdd_ithvar().
bdd a = bdd_ithvar(aut->register_ap("a"));
// Set the acceptance condition of the automaton to co-Büchi
aut->set_acceptance(1, "Fin(0)");
// States are numbered from 0.
aut->new_states(3);
// The default initial state is 0, but it is always better to
// specify it explicitely.
aut->set_init_state(0U);
// new_edge() takes 3 mandatory parameters: source state,
// destination state, and label. A last optional parameter can be
// used to specify membership to acceptance sets.
//
// new_univ_edge() is similar, but the destination is a set of
// states.
aut->new_edge(0, 0, a);
aut->new_univ_edge(0, {0, 1}, !a);
aut->new_edge(1, 1, !a, {0});
aut->new_edge(1, 2, a);
aut->new_edge(2, 2, bddtrue);
// Print the resulting automaton.
print_hoa(std::cout, aut);
return 0;
}
HOA: v1
States: 3
Start: 0
AP: 1 "a"
acc-name: co-Buchi
Acceptance: 1 Fin(0)
properties: univ-branch trans-labels explicit-labels trans-acc complete
properties: deterministic
--BODY--
State: 0
[0] 0
[!0] 0&1
State: 1
[!0] 1 {0}
[0] 2
State: 2
[t] 2
--END--
Python
import spot
import buddy
# The bdd_dict is used to maintain the correspondence between the
# atomic propositions and the BDD variables that label the edges of
# the automaton.
bdict = spot.make_bdd_dict();
# This creates an empty automaton that we have yet to fill.
aut = spot.make_twa_graph(bdict)
# Since a BDD is associated to every atomic proposition, the register_ap()
# function returns a BDD variable number that can be converted into a BDD
# using bdd_ithvar() from the BuDDy library.
a = buddy.bdd_ithvar(aut.register_ap("a"))
# Set the acceptance condition of the automaton to co-Büchi
aut.set_acceptance(1, "Fin(0)")
# States are numbered from 0.
aut.new_states(3)
# The default initial state is 0, but it is always better to
# specify it explicitely.
aut.set_init_state(0);
# new_edge() takes 3 mandatory parameters: source state, destination state,
# and label. A last optional parameter can be used to specify membership
# to acceptance sets. In the Python version, the list of acceptance sets
# the transition belongs to should be specified as a list.
#
# new_univ_edge() is similar, but the destination is a list of states.
aut.new_edge(0, 0, a);
aut.new_univ_edge(0, [0, 1], -a);
aut.new_edge(1, 1, -a, [0]);
aut.new_edge(1, 2, a);
aut.new_edge(2, 2, buddy.bddtrue);
# Print the resulting automaton.
print(aut.to_str('hoa'))
Additional comments
Alternating automata in Spot can also have a universal initial state:
e.g, an automaton may start in 0&1&2. Use set_univ_init_state()
to declare such as state.
We have a separate page describing how to explore the edges of an alternating automaton.
Once you have built an alternating automaton, you can remove the alternation to obtain a non-deterministic Büchi or generalized Büchi automaton.