Homework and Exams

• Homework
Context Free Languages – Return Homework #2
– Homework #3 Due today

Grammars

Homework and Exams Homework and Exams

– Homework #4 (due 10/13) • …and Exams
• Exercise 5.1.2 b, c (pg 180)
– Exam 1 is Wednesday!!
• Exercise 5.1.7 a,b (pg 181)
• Exercise 5.2.1 b,c (pg 191)
• Design a CFG for the following languages
– Set of odd length strings in {a,b}* with middle symbol a
– Set of even length strings in {a,b}* with the 2 middle
– Questions?
symbols equal
• Show that the CFG with the productions below is
ambiguous:
– S→a | Sa | bSS | SSb | SbS

Schedule Mangling Schedule Mangling

• Today • Perhaps more mangling to come in Week 8
– Chapter 5: CFGs, Parse Trees, Ambiguity
• Wednesday – Move exam 2 to Wednesday?
– Exam 1
– Problem Session for Chapter 5
• Monday, Oct 13th – Stay tuned
– Homework #4 due – Homework #5 Assigned • Watch the schedule page
– Chapter 6: Pushdown Automata
• Wednesday, Oct 15th
– Chapter 6 (cont)
– Problem Session for Chapter 6

1
 Before We Start Plan for today
• Any questions? • Context Free Languages
– Next class of languages in our quest!

Languages Regular Languages

• Recall. • For the past several weeks, we have been
– What is a language? looking at Regular Languages:
– What is a class of languages? – Means of describing: Regular Expression
– Machine for accepting: Finite Automata

Last class we discovered Context Free Languages

• Venn-diagram of languages • Context Free Languages(CFL) is the next
Is there class of languages outside of Regular
something Regular Languages Languages:
out here?
– Means for defining: Context Free Grammar
– Machine for accepting: Pushdown Automata
YES!
Finite
Languages

2
 Plan for today Introduction
• Define and describe context free grammars • Grammars
– Think back to your days of learning English
– Rules for constructing a valid sentence
• Questions? • Sentence = noun phrase + verb phrase
• Noun phrase =
– Name (Joe)
– Article + noun (the car)
• Verb Phrase =
– Verb (runs)
– Verb + prepositional phrase

Introduction Introduction
• Grammars • Look at the sentence. Is this grammatically
– Rules for constructing a simple sentence correct?
• Sentence = noun phrase + verb phrase – Joe runs from the car.
• Noun phrase =
– Name (Joe) – Sentence = noun phrase + verb phrase
– Article + noun (the car) – = noun + verb phrase
• Verb Phrase = – = Name + verb phrase
– Verb (runs) – = Joe + verb phrase
– Verb + prepositional phrase – = Joe + verb + prepositional phrase
• Prepositional Phrase = – = Joe + verb + preposition + noun phrase
– Preposition + noun phrase (from the car) – = Joe + verb + from + noun phrase
– = Joe + verb + from + article +noun

Introduction Introduction
• Look at the sentence. Is this grammatically • Observations
correct? – Our definition of a valid simple sentence
– Joe runs from the car. includes:
• A set of grammar categories (sentence, noun phrase,
– Sentence = Joe + verb + from + article +noun verb phrase, noun, verb, etc)
– = Joe + verb + from + the + car • Rules for defining each category
– = Joe + ran + from + the + car • Set of “final strings” (Joe, ran, from, the, car)
• Initial category of what we wish to create (sentence)
• Valid sentence!

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 Back to CS Theory Back to CS Theory
• CFLs are defined using Context Free • Recall our friend: Palindromes
Grammars(CFG) – A palindrome is a string that is the same read
– Grammars, like their spoken language left to right or right to left
counterparts, provide a means to recursively – First half of a palindrome is a “mirror image”
“deriving” the strings in a language. of the second half
– Examples:
• a, b, aba, abba, babbab.

Back to CS Theory Back to CS Theory

• Recursive definition for palindromes (pal) • A CFG for palindromes over {a,b}
over Σ – Base cases
1.ε ∈ pal 1. P → ε
[Link] any a ∈ Σ, a ∈ pal 2. P → a
3. P → b
[Link] any x ∈pal and a ∈ Σ, axa ∈ pal
– Recursion
[Link] string is in pal unless it can be obtained by
4. P → aPa
rules 1-3
5. P → bPb

Back to CS Theory Back to CS Theory

• Building the palindrome abba using • What we did:
grammar – At each step, we replaced the symbol P on the
• P ⇒ aPa (Rule 4) right with one of the definitions of P from our
rule set.
• P ⇒ abPba (Rule 5)
• P ⇒ ab ε ba (Rule 1)
– Relating to our sentence example
• Categories were replaced by Symbols
• P ⇒ abba
• Final strings were replaced by Symbols
• Start category was replaced by a symbol
• We still have our set of rules.

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 Context Free Grammars Context Free Grammars
• Let’s redefine grammars for CS Theory use: • Production Rules
1. Terminals = Set of symbols that form the strings of – Of the form A → B
the language being defined
• A is a variable
2. Variables = Set of symbols representing categories
• B is a string, combining terminals and variables
3. Start Symbol = variable that represents the “base
• To apply a rule, replace an occurance of A with the
category” that defines our language
string B.
4. Production rules = set of rules that recursively define
the language

Context Free Grammars Context Free Grammars

• Let’s formalize this a bit: • Let’s formalize this a bit:
– A context free grammar (CFG) is a 4-tuple: (V, – Production rules
T, P, S) where • Of the form A → β where
– A ∈V
• V is a set of variables – β ∈ (V ∪ T)* string with symbols from V and T
• T is a set of terminals • We say that γ can be derived from α in one step:
• P is a set of production rules – A → β is a rule
• V and T are disjoint (I.e. V ∩ T = ∅) – α = α1A α2
– γ = α1 β α2
• S ∈V, is your start symbol – α⇒γ

Context Free Grammars Context Free Grammars

• Let’s formalize this a bit: • The language generated by a CFG
– Production rules – Let G = (V, T, P, S)
• We say that the grammar is context-free since this – The language generated by G, L(G)
substitution can take place regardless of where A is. • L(G) = { x ∈ T* | S ⇒* x}
• We write α ⇒* γ if γ can be derived from α in zero
or more steps.
– A language L is a Context Free Language
(CFL) iff there is a CFG G, such that
• L = L(G)

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 Example Example
• Find a CFG to describe: • Find a CFG to describe:
– L = {x ∈ {0,1}* | n0(x) = n1(x)} – L = {x ∈ {0,1}* | n0(x) = n1(x)}
– Basic idea (define recursively) • S → ε (1)
• ε is certainly in the language • S → 0S1 (2)
• For all strings in the language, if we add a 0 and 1 to • S → 1S0 (3)
the string, the result is in the language. • S → SS (4)
• The concatenation of any two strings in the language
will also be in the language

Example Another example

• Let’s derive a string from L • Find a CFG to describe:
– 00110011 – L = {aibjck | i = k}
– S ⇒ SS rule 4 • Number of a’s equals the number of c’s with any
number of b’s between them
⇒ 0S1 0S1 rule 2
• Use variable B to represent bj
⇒ 00S11 00S11 rule 2 • Every time you add a to the left of B you need to
⇒ 00 ε 11 00 ε 11 rule 1 add c to the right.
= 00110011

Another example Another example

• Find a CFG to describe: • Let’s derive a string from L: aabbbcc
– L = {aibjck | i = k} – S ⇒ aSc rule 2
• S→B (1) S ⇒ aaScc rule 2
• S → aSc (2) S ⇒ aaBcc rule 1
• B → bB (3) S ⇒ aabBcc rule 3
• B→ε (4) S ⇒ aabbBcc rule 3
– Can also write as S ⇒ aabbbBcc rule 3
• S → B | aSc S ⇒ aabbb ε cc rule 4
• B → bB | ε = aabbb ε cc

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 One more example One more example
• Defining the grammar for algebraic • Defining the grammar for algebraic
expressions: expressions:
– Let a = a numeric constant – G = (V, T, P, S)
– Set of binary operators = {+, -, *, /}
– V = {S}
– Expressions can be parenthesized
– T = { a, -, +, *, /, (, ) }
– S=S
– P = see next slide

One more example One more example

• Defining the grammar for algebraic • Show derivation for a + (a * a) / a
expressions – Production rules – S⇒S+S rule 1
–S→S+S (1) S⇒a+S rule 6
S→S–S (2) S⇒a+S/S rule 4
S→S*S (3) S ⇒ a + (S) / S rule 5
S→S/S (4) S ⇒ a + (S * S) / S rule 3
S ⇒ a + (a * S) / S rule 6
S → (S) (5)
S ⇒ a + (a * a) / S rule 6
S→a (6)
S ⇒ a + (a * a) / a rule 6

Practical uses for grammars A real practical example

• How a compiler works • Grammars for programming languages
– <stmt> → … | <for-stmt> | <if-stmt> | …
lexer
Stream
parser
Parse – <stmt> → { <stmt> <stmt> } | ε
of tokens codegen
Tree – <if-stmt> → if ( <expr> ) then <stmt>
Object – <for-stmt> → for ( <expr>; <expr>; <expr>)
Source
code <stmt>
file

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 A real practical example Another real practical example
• Grammars for programming languages • Anybody here work with XML?
– Keywords and punctuation are terminals • DTDs in XML can be expressed as
– Program constructs are variables grammars.
– Production rules define the syntax of the – Use parsing technology to parse / represent
language XMK DTDs.

– This is really the second step in building a • See Section 5.3.4 for details.
compiler!

Summary
• Next class of languages Context Free
Languages.
– Described by Context Free Grammars
• G = (V, Σ, S, P)

• Questions?

• Let’s Break!