Data Structures with cP Systems or Byzantine Succintly

Abstract

We refine our earlier version of P systems with complex symbols. The new version, called cP systems, enables the creation and manipulation of high-level data structures which are typical in high-level languages, such as: relations (graphs), associative arrays, lists, trees. We assess these capabilities by attempting a revised version of our previously best solution for the Byzantine agreement problem - a famous problem in distributed algorithms, with non-trivial data structures and algorithms. In contrast to our previous solutions, which use a greater than exponential number of symbols and rules, the new solution uses a fixed sized alphabet and ruleset, independent of the problem size. The new ruleset follows closely the conceptual description of the algorithm. This revised framework opens the way to further extensions, which may bring P systems closer to the conceptual Actor model.