Say one has a language $L \subseteq \Sigma^*$, but one doesn't know what strings are actually part of the language. All one has is a finite view of the language: a finite set of strings $A \subseteq L$ that are known to be in the language, and a finite set of strings $B \subseteq (\Sigma^* \setminus L)$ that are known to not be in the language.
For example, let's say I have the $A = \{ab, aaab, aaaaabb\}$ and $B = \{b, aab, aaaba\}$. I might have the language $L = \{a^{2i+1}b^j~|~i, j \in \mathbb{N} \}$, since $A$ and $B$ are consistent with $L$, or I might have a completely different language.
My question is: is there a known way to create a DFA (deterministic finite automata) that accepts the strings in $A$ and rejects the strings in $B$, with a minimal or almost-minimal number of states? What's the complexity of this problem? How good is it at approximating $L$ (assuming $L$ has a fairly low descriptive complexity, and $A$ and $B$ are large)?
I wasn't sure if this was research-level for cstheory.stackexchange.com, so I'm posting here. I've taken a stab at trying to find an answer for this question, but I honestly have no idea where to look.
