Non-deterministic Finite Automata (NFA) may represent regular languages succinctly (in number of states), increasing their appeal for applications such as word recognition. This paper proposes a new approach to generate NFA from an interaction language such as UML Sequence Diagrams or Message Sequence Charts. Using an operational semantics, we generate an NFA from a set of interactions reachable using the associated execution relation. In addition, by applying simplifications (rewriting) on reachable interactions to merge them, it is possible to obtain reduced NFA without relying on costly NFA reduction techniques. Experimental results regarding NFA generation and their application in trace analysis are also presented.

翻译：非确定性有限自动机（NFA）能以简洁的状态数量表示正则语言，从而增强了其在词汇识别等应用中的吸引力。本文提出了一种新方法，可从交互语言（如UML序列图或消息序列图）生成NFA。通过操作语义，我们从一组可借助关联执行关系到达的交互中生成NFA。此外，通过对可到达交互应用简化（重写）以合并它们，可以在不依赖昂贵NFA缩减技术的情况下获得精简的NFA。文中还给出了关于NFA生成及其在轨迹分析中应用的实验结果。