Awali
Another Weighted Automata library
Doxygen Mainpage

Introduction

Awali is a software platform for computing with finite automata, in the broadest meaning of the term. It includes classical finite automata (rather called here Boolean automata); finite weighted automata with the instantiation of a large panel of weight semirings, finite (weighted) transducers, that is, automata over tuples of words rather than over words; and rational expressions for all these.

Awali is organised into three layers: the static layer, the dynamic layer, and the interface layers. This doxygen documentation is about the former two. (The documentation of Cora may be found with the help command; the documentation of the Python interface is directly available in the docstrings).

  • The static layer is part of namespace awali::sttc. It focuses on efficiency rather than user-friendlyness. As a result all types and functions are highly templated. Experts only.
  • The dynamic layer is contained in namespace awali::dyn. All types are erased in order to have only a few types. Recommended for C++ programmers.
  • A few constructs that are common to both layers (mostly enums and hash functions) are directly in namespace awali.

Executive summary of the dynamical layer

Getting started

  • It is recommended to use the following lines in your programs (it is usually assumed in examples).
    #include <awali/dyn.hh>
    using namespace awali::dyn;
    using namespace awali; // Mostly useful with the Options mechanism
  • Compile with option -lawalidyn
  • Take a look at files in directory awali/dyn/examples for a few examples.
  • At runtime, static modules are compiled the very first time an algorithm is executed in a given context. It takes up to twenty seconds.

Brief description of content