The Vaucanson Group. Proposal: an XML representation for automata. EPITA Research and Development Laboratory, Paris, France, November 2004.

This paper presents the xml formalism that was introduced at the ciaa 2004 conference to represent automata. This formalism was created to fulo/ll the need that was expressed at ciaa 2003 to have a standard for exchanging automata between various applications.

This format allows the user to describe many kinds of automata, including weighted automata and transducers. In order to achieve maximal genericity, a o/le is mainly divided into two parts: one to express the content of an automaton, and another one to specify the kind of automata the o/le refers to. Furthermore, extra data may be attached to an automaton, such as layout information. Using this formalism it is also possible to put multiple automata in a unique o/le.

An implementation of this formalism was created as an experimental feature in the Vaucanson software platform, which is a framework dedicated to automata manipulations.

• xml_proposal_2004.pdf
• xml_proposal_2004.ps

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