A trichotomy for regular simple path queries on graphs

DOI10.1016/J.JCSS.2019.08.006zbMATH Open1436.68131arXiv1212.6857OpenAlexW4390689069WikidataQ127214244 ScholiaQ127214244MaRDI QIDQ2009646FDOQ2009646

Benoît Groz, Angela Bonifati, Guillaume Bagan

Publication date: 29 November 2019

Published in: Journal of Computer and System Sciences (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Regular path queries (RPQs) select nodes connected by some path in a graph. The edge labels of such a path have to form a word that matches a given regular expression. We investigate the evaluation of RPQs with an additional constraint that prevents multiple traversals of the same nodes. Those regular simple path queries (RSPQs) find several applications in practice, yet they quickly become intractable, even for basic languages such as (aa)* or a*ba*. In this paper, we establish a comprehensive classification of regular languages with respect to the complexity of the corresponding regular simple path query problem. More precisely, we identify the fragment that is maximal in the following sense: regular simple path queries can be evaluated in polynomial time for every regular language L that belongs to this fragment and evaluation is NP-complete for languages outside this fragment. We thus fully characterize the frontier between tractability and intractability for RSPQs, and we refine our results to show the following trichotomy: Evaluations of RSPQs is either AC0, NL-complete or NP-complete in data complexity, depending on the regular language L. The fragment identified also admits a simple characterization in terms of regular expressions. Finally, we also discuss the complexity of the following decision problem: decide, given a language L, whether finding a regular simple path for L is tractable. We consider several alternative representations of L: DFAs, NFAs or regular expressions, and prove that this problem is NL-complete for the first representation and PSPACE-complete for the other two. As a conclusion we extend our results from edge-labeled graphs to vertex-labeled graphs and vertex-edge labeled graphs.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.6857

zbMATH Keywords

graphscomplexityautomataregular languagesregular simple paths

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Formal languages and automata (68Q45) Analysis of algorithms and problem complexity (68Q25) Graph theory (including graph drawing) in computer science (68R10) Computational difficulty of problems (lower bounds, completeness, difficulty of approximation, etc.) (68Q17) Parameterized complexity, tractability and kernelization (68Q27)

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Space-bounded hierarchies and probabilistic computations
• Directed tree-width
• Graph minors. XIII: The disjoint paths problem
• Color-coding
• Nondeterministic Space is Closed under Complementation
• On finite monoids having only trivial subgroups
• Formal-Language-Constrained Path Problems
• Finding Regular Simple Paths in Graph Databases
• Finding k Disjoint Paths in a Directed Planar Graph
• The even-path problem for graphs and digraphs
• The Theory of Definite Automata
• Modularity of cycles and paths in graphs
• Complexity results on labeled shortest path problems from wireless routing metrics
• The complexity of regular expressions and property paths in SPARQL
• Evaluation and Enumeration Problems for Regular Path Queries
• A Polynomial-Time Algorithm for Finding Regular Simple Paths in Outerplanar Graphs
• Finding an Even Simple Path in a Directed Planar Graph

Cited In (9)

• Fine-Grained Complexity of Regular Path Queries
• Formal languages in information extraction and graph databases
• Digraphs of Bounded Width
• Foundations of graph path query languages. Course notes for the reasoning web summer school 2021
• Finding Regular Simple Paths in Graph Databases
• Path querying on acyclic graphs using Boolean grammars
• A Trichotomy for Regular Trail Queries
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Formal language constrained path problems

This page was built for publication: A trichotomy for regular simple path queries on graphs

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2009646)