A Complete Propositional Dynamic Logic for Regular Expressions with Lookahead

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Authors: Yoshiki Nakamura
Cited by: 1

Abstract

We consider (logical) reasoning for regular expressions with lookahead (REwLA). In this paper, we give an axiomatic characterization for both the (match-)language equivalence and the largest substitution-closed equivalence that is sound for the (match-)language equivalence. To achieve this, we introduce a variant of propositional dynamic logic (PDL) on finite linear orders, extended with two operators: the restriction to the identity relation and the restriction to its complement. Our main contribution is a sound and complete Hilbert-style finite axiomatization for the logic, which captures the equivalences of REwLA. Using the extended operators, the completeness is established via a reduction into an identity-free variant of PDL on finite strict linear orders. Moreover, the extended PDL has the same computational complexity as REwLA.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Logic Reasoning and Knowledge Machine Learning and Algorithms programming and type systems

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
21 January 2026
Document type
Preprint