Is there a quick way to check if a function $h(x)$ can be generated as a composition of other functions $f(x)$ and $g(x)$

96 Views Asked by At

Given two functions $f(x)$ and $g(x)$, infinitely many compositions can be generated. For example we can look at the following two functions:

$$f(x) = 2x$$

$$g(x) = x+1$$

There is a subspace of all functions that can be generated such as the following examples:

$$(g\circ f)(x) = g(f(x)) = 2x+1$$

$$(g\circ f\circ f)(x) = 4x+1$$

$$(f\circ f\circ f\circ g\circ g\circ f)(x) = 16x+16$$

Is there a way to see if functions fall into this space? For the above example, it is easy to see that any function following

$$h(x) = 2^{c_1}*x+{c_2}$$

can be generated, but a function such as

$$h(x) = x$$

can never be generated from $f(x)$ and $g(x)$. Is there a way to generalize this to any two functions in order to see what functions can/cannot be generated?