Preprint article · Conference paper
String attractors: Verification and optimization
String attractors [STOC 2018] are combinatorial objects recently introduced to unify all known dictionary compression techniques in a single theory. A set γ ⊆ [1.n] is a k-attractor for a string S ∈ Σn if and only if every distinct substring of S of length at most k has an occurrence crossing at least one of the positions in γ.
Finding the smallest k-attractor is NP-hard for k ≥ 3, but polylogarithmic approximations can be found using reductions from dictionary compressors. It is easy to reduce the k-attractor problem to a set-cover instance where the string's positions are interpreted as sets of substrings. The main result of this paper is a much more powerful reduction based on the truncated suffix tree.
Our new characterization of the problem leads to more efficient algorithms for string attractors: we show how to check the validity and minimality of a k-attractor in near-optimal time and how to quickly compute exact solutions. For example, we prove that a minimum 3-attractor can be found in O(n) time when |Σ| ∈ O(3+ϵ√log n) for some constant ϵ > 0, despite the problem being NP-hard for large Σ.
Language: | English |
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Publisher: | Schloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik GmbH, Dagstuhl Publishing |
Year: | 2018 |
Proceedings: | 26th Annual European Symposium on AlgorithmsEuropean Symposium on Algorithms |
ISBN: | 3959770812 and 9783959770811 |
Types: | Preprint article and Conference paper |
DOI: | 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2018.52 |
ORCIDs: | Rotenberg, Eva |