Introduction Automata

Theory

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Automata Theory models represent features at
the core of all computers and their applications.
To model the hardware of a computer, we
introduce the notion of an automaton (plural,
automata).
An automaton is a construct that possesses all
the indispensable features of a digital computer.
It accepts input, produces output, may have
some temporary storage, and can make
decisions in transforming the input into the
output.
A formal language is an abstraction of the
general characteristics of programming
languages.
A formal language consists of a set of symbols
and some rules of formation by which these
symbols can be combined into entities called
sentences.

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Example 1.1 --- an FA modeling an on/off
switch
push
start off on
push

Example 1.2 --- an FA modeling recognition

of the keyword “then” in a lexical analyzer

t h e n
start t th the then

The double circles specify the final or “accepting

state.”
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Structural Representation
 Two other models (not automaton-like)
Grammar --- processing data with a recursive
structure
 E.g., grammatical rule E  E + E for generating
arithmetic expressions
Regular expression --- describing text strings
 E.g., UNIX-style regular expression

’[A-Z][a-z]*[ ][A-Z][A-Z]’ describes Ithaca NY, Lafayette IN…

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Automata and Complexity

 What can a computer do? ---

Computability:
Studying problems which can be solved by

computer, called decidable problems.

Decidability is the main topic in computability.

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Three basic concepts

 Alphabet --- a set of symbols

 Strings --- a sequence of symbols from an
alphabet
 Language --- a set of strings from the same
alphabet

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Alphabets

 Definition ---

An alphabet is a finite,
finite
nonempty set of symbols.

Conventional notation --- 

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Alphabets

 The term “symbol”

symbol is usually undefined.
Examples ---

 Binary alphabet 

 a, b, …, z} …

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Strings
 Definition ---

A string (or word) is a finite sequence

of symbols from an alphabet.
Example ---
 1011 is a string from alphabet 

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Strings
 Empty string --- a string with zero occurrences

of symbols
 Length |w| of string w --- the number of positions

for symbols in w
Examples --- |0111|=4, ||=0, …

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Strings
 Power of an alphabet k ---

a set of all strings of length k

Examples ---
 given we have

  = {
 2 = {00, 01, 10, 11}
 Supplemental --- 10 = (01)0 =  …

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Strings

 Set of all strings over  --- denoted as 

 It is not difficult to know that

∪ ∪ ∪ …

Strings
 set of nonempty strings from


 Therefore, we have
 ∪ ∪ ∪…
 ∪

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Strings
 Concatenation of two strings x and y --- xy
Example ---
 if x = 01101, y = 110,
110 then

xy = 01101110, xx = x= 0110101101, …

  is the identity for concatenation

since w = ww.

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Strings (supplemental)
 Power of a string ---
Defined by concatenation ---
 xi = xx…x (x concatenated i times)

Defined by recursion ---

 x0 =  (by definition)

 xi = xxi-1

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Languages
 Definition ---

a language is a set of strings all

chosen from some *

 If  is an alphabet, and L*, then L is a

language over .

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Languages
Examples ---
The set of all legal English words is a
language. Why? What is the alphabet
here?
Answer: the set of all letters
A legal program of C is a language.
Why? What is the alphabet here?
Answer: a subset of the ASCII Chapt
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Languages
 More examples of languages ---
The set of all strings of n 0’s followed by n 1’s for n

0:
{, 01, 0011, 000111, …}

* is an infinite language for any alphabet .

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Languages

 More examples of languages (cont’d) ---

the empty language (not the empty string is a

language over any alphabet.

{} is a language over any alphabet (consisting of

only one string, the empty string ).

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 Languages
 Ways to describe languages (1/3) ---
 Description by exhaustive listing ---
 L1 = {a, ab, abc} (finite language; listed one by one)

 L2 = {a, ab, abb, abbb, ...} (infinite language; listed

partially)
 L3 = L(ab*) (infinite language; expressed by a regular

expression)

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 Languages
 Ways to define languages (2/3) ---
 Description by generic elements ---

 L4 = {x | x is over V = {a, b}, begins with a,

followed by any number of b, possible none}

(note: L4 = L3 = L2)

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 Languages
 Ways to define languages (3/3) ---
 Description by integer parameters ---

 L5 = {abn | n  0}

(note: L5 = L4 = L3 = L2)

*** bn = power of a symbol

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A

 a Operations on Languages
(supplemental)(1/2)
(supplemental)
 Languages are sets, and operations of sets

may be applied to them:

(1) union --- A∪B = {a | a  A or a  B}

(2) intersection --- A∩B = {a | a  A and a B}

(3) difference --- A  B = {a | a  A and a Chapt

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A

 a Operations on Languages
(supplemental)(2/2)
(supplemental)
 Languages are sets, and operations of sets

may be applied to them:

(4) product --- A  B = {(a, b) | a  A and b  B}
(5) complement --- Ā = {a | a  U and a  A}
(6) power set --- 2A = {B | B  A}
Note: U is the universal set,
set like which is the
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A

 More Operations on Languages

(supplemental)(1/2)

 Concatenation of two languages L1 and L2

---
 L1L2 = {x1x2 | x1  L1 and x2  L2}

 Power of a language L ---

 Defined directly ---
 Lk = {x1x2…xk | x1, x2, …, xk  L}

 Defined by recursion ---

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A

 More Operations on Languages

(supplemental)(2/2)

 Closure of language L ---


 L* = Li = L∪ L∪ L∪ …
i 0
 Positive closure of a language L ---

 L+ = L∪ L∪ …

 It can be shown that L LL – {}

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Problems
 A problem in automata theory ---

a question of deciding whether a given string is a

member of some particular language.

 That is, if is an alphabet, and L is a language

over , the problem L is:

given a string w in *, decide ifw L or not

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The basic terminologies used in Automata
Theory:- Alphabets, Strings,
Languages, and Grammar.
Symbols: Symbols are an entity or
individual objects, which can be any
letter, alphabet or any picture. E.g.: 1, a,
b, #
Alphabets: A finite set of non-empty
symbols. It is denoted by ∑ (sigma).
Examples: ∑ = {a, b} is the binary alphabet
∑ = {A, B, C, D} is the set of uppercase letters
String: a finite collection of symbols from the
alphabet. The string is denoted by w.
Example1: If ∑ = {a, b}, various string that
can be generated from ∑ are {ab, aa, aaa,
bb, bbb, ba, aba.....}.
o A string with zero occurrences of symbols is
known as an empty string. It is represented
by ε.
o The number of symbols in a string w is
called the length of a string. It is denoted
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Example 2:
 w = 010; Number of String |w| = 3
 abcbz is a string over ? = {a, b, c, d… z}
 11001011 is a string over ? = {0, 1}
 )) ()(() is a string over ? = {(,)}
Language: A language is a collection of
appropriate string. A language which is formed
over Σ can be Finite or Infinite.
Example: 1
L1 = {Set of string of length 2}, L1 = {aa, bb,
ba, bb} Finite Language
Example: 2
L2 = {Set of all strings starts with 'a'}, L2= {a,
aa, aaa, abb, abbb, ababb} Infinite Language
 Grammar
 A grammar defines a set of rules, and with
the use of these rules, valid sentences in a
language are generated. Similar to English
language we have set of rules in automata,
which help us in creating sentences.