Transducers of polynomial growth

Abstract

The polyregular functions are a class of string-to-string functions that have polynomial size outputs, and which can be defined using finite state models. There are many equivalent definitions of this class, with roots in automata theory, programming languages and logic. This paper surveys recent results on polyregular functions. It presents five of the equivalent definitions, and gives self-contained proofs for most of the equivalences. Decision problems as well as restricted subclasses of the polyregular functions are also discussed.