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+/*!
+Provides non-deterministic finite automata (NFA) and regex engines that use
+them.
+
+While NFAs and DFAs (deterministic finite automata) have equivalent *theoretical*
+power, their usage in practice tends to result in different engineering trade
+offs. While this isn't meant to be a comprehensive treatment of the topic, here
+are a few key trade offs that are, at minimum, true for this crate:
+
+* NFAs tend to be represented sparsely where as DFAs are represented densely.
+Sparse representations use less memory, but are slower to traverse. Conversely,
+dense representations use more memory, but are faster to traverse. (Sometimes
+these lines are blurred. For example, an `NFA` might choose to represent a
+particular state in a dense fashion, and a DFA can be built using a sparse
+representation via [`sparse::DFA`](crate::dfa::sparse::DFA).
+* NFAs have espilon transitions and DFAs don't. In practice, this means that
+handling a single byte in a haystack with an NFA at search time may require
+visiting multiple NFA states. In a DFA, each byte only requires visiting
+a single state. Stated differently, NFAs require a variable number of CPU
+instructions to process one byte in a haystack where as a DFA uses a constant
+number of CPU instructions to process one byte.
+* NFAs are generally easier to amend with secondary storage. For example, the
+[`thompson::pikevm::PikeVM`] uses an NFA to match, but also uses additional
+memory beyond the model of a finite state machine to track offsets for matching
+capturing groups. Conversely, the most a DFA can do is report the offset (and
+pattern ID) at which a match occurred. This is generally why we also compile
+DFAs in reverse, so that we can run them after finding the end of a match to
+also find the start of a match.
+* NFAs take worst case linear time to build, but DFAs take worst case
+exponential time to build. The [hybrid NFA/DFA](crate::hybrid) mitigates this
+challenge for DFAs in many practical cases.
+
+There are likely other differences, but the bottom line is that NFAs tend to be
+more memory efficient and give easier opportunities for increasing expressive
+power, where as DFAs are faster to search with.
+
+# Why only a Thompson NFA?
+
+Currently, the only kind of NFA we support in this crate is a [Thompson
+NFA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson%27s_construction). This refers
+to a specific construction algorithm that takes the syntax of a regex
+pattern and converts it to an NFA. Specifically, it makes gratuitous use of
+epsilon transitions in order to keep its structure simple. In exchange, its
+construction time is linear in the size of the regex. A Thompson NFA also makes
+the guarantee that given any state and a character in a haystack, there is at
+most one transition defined for it. (Although there may be many epsilon
+transitions.)
+
+It possible that other types of NFAs will be added in the future, such as a
+[Glushkov NFA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glushkov%27s_construction_algorithm).
+But currently, this crate only provides a Thompson NFA.
+*/
+
+#[cfg(feature = "nfa-thompson")]
+pub mod thompson;