Word Equations in Synergy with Regular Constraints

We argue that in string solving, word equations and regular constraints are better mixed together than approached separately as in most current string solvers. We propose a fast algorithm, complete for the fragment of chain-free constraints, in which word equations and regular constraints are tightly integrated and exchange information, efficiently pruning the cases generated by each other and limiting possible combinatorial explosion. The algorithm is based on a novel language-based characterisation of satisfiability of word equations with regular constraints. We experimentally show that  our prototype implementation is competitive with the best string solvers and even superior in that it is the fastest on difficult examples and has the least number of timeouts.