Minimal Generators in Optimal Time

Abstract

A walk of length n on a string S of length m is a function f : {1, … , n} → {1, … , m} such that ∀ i ∈ {2, … , n} : |f(i) - f(i - 1)| ≤ 1. The walk generates the string T of length n defined by {∀ i ∈ {1, … , n} : T[i] = S[f(i)]}. Intuitively, this can be seen as walking n steps in S and outputting the encountered symbols, where in each step we either remain at the same position, or move one position to the left or to the right. The minimal generator of a string T is the shortest string S such that a walk on S generates T. Recently, it was shown that each string admits exactly one (up to reversal) minimal generator (Pratt-Hartmann, CPM 2024). However, no efficient algorithm for computing the minimal generator was known. We provide an optimal algorithm for this task, taking {O}(n) time for a string of length n over general unordered alphabet, i.e., accessing the string only by equality comparisons of symbols. The main challenge is to detect substrings of the form axbx̃axb and replace them with axb, where a,b are symbols and x is a string with reversal x̃. We solve this problem with a non-trivial adaptation of Manacher’s classic algorithm for computing maximal palindromic substrings (Manacher, J. ACM 1975). To obtain the final algorithm, we solve small subinstances of the problem in optimal time by adapting the "Four Russians" technique to strings over general unordered alphabet, which may be of independent interest.