BASIC CONCEPTS AND
FINITE AUTOMATA
MODULE 1
Prepared By: Mr. Vaibhav
CONTENT
• ALPHABET, STRINGS
• OPERATIONS ON STRINGS
• LANGUAGES
• OPERATIONS ON LANGUAGES
• EXAMPLE
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Basic concepts of language
• Alphabet: Non empty set Σ of symbol or finite collection of symbols
• Strings: Finite sequence of symbols from alphabet
E.g. If Alphabet Σ = { a, b }
Then possible set of strings S = { a, b, abb, ba,
bbbb }
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Basic concepts of language
Certain Notations:
1. Lower case letters are used to represent strings
2. a, b, c, … are used for elements of Σ
3. u, v, w, … are used for string names
E. g. w = abaa
The meaning of above expression is 'w' is string name
which has specified value 'abaa'
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More on Strings …...
Concatenation of Strings: Appending the symbol of second string at
the end of the first string
E. g. If w = a1a2 … an
v = b1b2 … bm
Then v . w = b1b2 … bm a1a2 … an
w . v = a1a2 … an b1b2 … bm
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More on Strings …...
• Reverse of a string: Writing symbols of the string in reverse order
E. g. If w = a 1a2 … a n
Then w R = a n … a 2a1
• Length of string: Number of symbols in the string denoted by | w | for
string w
E. g. If w = aab
Then |w| = 3
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More on Strings …...
• Empty string: String with no symbols. It is denoted by epsilon ε
|ε|=0
ε.w = w.ε = w
• Substring: Any string with consecutive symbols in w is said to be substring of w.
If w=u. v
Then u -> Prefix v -> Suffix
Here | uv | = |u| + |v|
E.g. If w = abbab
Set of All Prefixes P = { ε, a, ab, abb, abba, abbab }
Set of All Suffixes. S = { ε, b, ab, bab, bbab, Prepared
abbab } By: Mr. Vaibhav
More on Strings …...
• If w is a string then
wn stands for string obtained by repeating 'w' n times
• Special Case: w0 = ε For all w
• If Σ is an alphabet then we use Σ* to denote the set of strings obtained by
concatenating zero or more symbols from Σ
• Σ* includes all the strings and ε
• To exclude empty string we define Σ+ = Σ* - {ε}
• Σ is finite set of symbols but Σ+ and Σ* are infinite set of strings as there is no
limit to length of the string in set
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Language
• Language is collection of appropriate strings. It is generally subset
of Σ*
• Sentence: A string in a language L will be called as sentence of L
• Ex. 1 Let Σ = { a, b }
Σ* = { ε, a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa, … }
If L = { a, aa, aab } then L is a language on Σ
Here L is a finite language where number of sentences
are countable
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Language
• Ex. 2 Let Σ = { a, b }
and if L = { a n bn | n ≥ 0 }
then Σ* = { ε, a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa, … }
L = { ε, ab, aabb, aaabbb, … }
L is a language on Σ
Here L is an infinite language
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Operations on Languages
If L1 and L2 are two languages then
1. Union: L1 U L2
2. Intersection: L1 ∩ L2
3. Difference of Languages: L1 - L2
4. Concatenation of Languages: L1 .
L2
L1 . L2 = { x . y | x ∈ L1 and y ∈ L2 }
Special case: Ln - L concatenated with itself 'n' times
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Operations on Languages
5. Complement of a Language ( L ): It is defined with respect to Σ*
L = Σ* - L
6. Reverse of a language ( LR): It is set of all strings in reverse
format
LR = { wR | w ε L }
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Operations on Languages
7. Star Closure of a language ( L*)
L* = L0 U L 1 U L2 …
8. Positive Closure of a language ( L+ )
L+ = L1 U L2 U L3 ...
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Examples
Describe the language over the input set A = {a,b}
Ex. 1 L1 = { a, ab, ab2, ab3, ab4 , … }
Ex. 2 L2 = { anbn | n ≥ 1 }
L2 = { ab, a2b2, a3b3, …}
Ex. 3 L3 = { ambn | n > 0 }
L3 = { b, ab, a2b, ab2, … }
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OPERATIONS ON LANGUAGES
• L1 U L2 = { a, ab, ab2, a2b2, ab3, a3b3, … }
• L1 ∩ L2 = { ab }
• L1 – L2 = { a, ab2, ab3, ab4, … }
• L1 . L2 = { aab, aa2b2, aa3b3, abab, aba2b2, … }
= { aab, a3b2, a4b3, abab, aba2b2, … }
• L1R = { a, ba, b2a, b3a, b4a, … }
• L2R = { ba, b2a2, b3a3, … }
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FINITE AUTOMATA
• A finite automata is a collection of five tuples ( Q, Σ, delta ( δ ) , q0 , F
)
Where Q is a finite set of states
Σ is input alphabet
q0 is an initial state q0 ∈ Q
F is a set of final states
(delta) δ is a Transition Function or Mapping Function
• The strings and languages can be accepted by a finite automata
when it reaches to the final state
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Representation of Finite Automata
1. Transition Diagram
1
S1
0
S2
S0
S0 – Start State
0 S2 – Final State
1 0 S3 S1, S3, S4 – Other
S4
States
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Representation of Finite Automata
• Example for transition diagram to accept the string 'aabb'
a a b b
S0 S1 S2 S3 S4
Start State: S0
Final State: S4
Other States: S1, S2,
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Representation of Finite Automata
2. Transition table
Tabular representation of finite automata
Rows – states
Columns – inputs State/ a b
Input
Transition S0 S1 --
S1 S2 --
1. δ ( S0 , a ) = S1
S2 -- S3
2. δ ( S1, a ) = S2 S3 -- S4
S4 --
3. δ ( S2, b ) = S3
4. δ ( S3, b ) = S4
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Finite State Machine
It is represented using
a b a b a b
1. Input Tape: Linear tape having
number of cells. Each cell has one Tape
Reader
input symbol
2. Tape Reader: It reads input Finite Control
symbols from left to right. One
symbol is read at a time
3. Finite Control: It decides the next Prepared By: Mr. Vaibhav
Finite State Machine
If current state is S0 and input symbol
a b a b a b
read is 'a' then finite control will decide
the next state. Tape
Reader
The transition from S0 with input 'a' to Finite Control
next state S1 producing 'v' can be
represented as
( S0 , a ) |- ( S1 , v ) Prepared By: Mr. Vaibhav
Finite State Machine
• If w is a string then w is accepted by
Finite Automata a b a b a b
( w , s ) |* (q,€)
Tape
Reader
with q is final state
• The set of strings accepted by Finite
Finite Control
Automata given by M, then M is
accepted by language L
• It is denoted by L(M)
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