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TheoremStatement: Literature-sourcedProof: AI-generatedprecheck passjudge pass (gpt-5.6-terra)audited 2026-09-12
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DFA membership, emptiness, finiteness, equivalence, and containment are decidable

Statement

The five decision problems named in Membership, emptiness, finiteness, equivalence, and containment for regular languages are decidable for DFA input.

Facts & Assumptions

[L1]

By Acceptance of a word by a DFA and the recognized language, a DFA accepts a word exactly when the run on that word ends in an accepting state.

[L2]

By The product construction gives DFA's for union and intersection, product constructions give DFA's for Boolean combinations built from union and intersection.

[L3]

By Complementing the accepting states complements the recognized language, complementing the accepting set of a DFA complements its language.

[A1]

For languages over one alphabet, AB=A(ΣB) and AB=(AB)(BA).

Proof

technique · direct
1.1

Membership is decidable by simulating the DFA on the finitely many letters of the input word and checking, via [L1], whether the final state is accepting.

L1given
1.2

Emptiness is decidable by a graph search from the start state through the finite transition graph: by [L1], the language is empty exactly when no accepting state is reachable.

L1given
2.1

Finiteness is decidable by restricting to states that are reachable from the start state and can themselves reach an accepting state. If that finite subgraph contains a directed cycle, then one may loop around the cycle arbitrarily many times before taking a path to acceptance, producing infinitely many accepted words. If it contains no directed cycle, then every accepting run has bounded length, so only finitely many words are accepted.

L1step 1.2
2.2

Given DFA's D1,D2, use [L3] to complement either machine and then [L2] to build DFA's for the two differences L(D1)L(D2) and L(D2)L(D1) and for their union. By [A1], that union is the symmetric difference, so D1 and D2 are equivalent exactly when the resulting DFA has empty language. Step 1.2 therefore decides equivalence.

L2L3A1step 1.2construct
3.1

The same constructions give a DFA for L(D1)L(D2). By [A1], the containment L(D1)L(D2) holds exactly when this difference language is empty, so step 1.2 also decides containment.

A1step 1.2step 2.2
4.1

Steps 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, and 3.1 decide membership, emptiness, finiteness, equivalence, and containment respectively.

step 1.1step 1.2step 2.1step 2.2step 3.1

Depends on

Used by

Dependency tree · two levels

11 results within two dependency steps of this one, each drawn at its shortest distance from it. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, so the chart reads left to right and ends at this result, which carries a heavier outline. Every node is a link to that result. Click elsewhere on the chart to enlarge it.

Sources