14.

4 Direct Conversion of PDAs to CFGs

257

parsing goal a is easy: just match a with the input. On the other hand,
with parsing goal M on top of the stack, we could also have set up the
parsing goal which means we could be done! Hence, another move
can simply empty M from the stack. Then, finally, when z0 shows up
on top of stack, we accept, as there are no parsing goals left.

14.4 Direct Conversion of PDAs to CFGs

We first illustrate the PDA to CFG conversion algorithm with an example. As soon as we present an example, we write the corresponding
general rule in slant fonts. Further details, should you need them, may
be found in the textbook of Hopcroft, Motwani, and Ullman [60] whose
algorithm we adopt. A slightly different algorithm appears in Sipsers
book [111].
delta
contains
----------------------

Productions
------------------------------S -> [p,Z0,x] for x in {p,q}

<p,(,Z0>

[p,Z0,r_2] -> ( [p,(,r_1] [r_1,Z0,r_2]

<p,(Z0>

for r_i in {p,q}

<p,(,(>

<p,((>

[p,(,r_2] -> ( [p,(,r_1] [r_1,(,r_2]

for r_i in {p,q}

<p,),(>

<p,e>

[p,(,p]

-> )

<p,e,Z0>

<q,e>

[p,Z0,q] -> e

Fig. 14.6. PDA to CFG conversion. Note that e means the same as .

Consider the PDA that accepts by empty stack,

({p, q}, {(, )}, {(, ), Z0}, , p, Z0)
with given in Figure 14.6. Recall that since this is a PDA that accepts by empty stack, we do not specify the F component in the PDA
structure. The above six-tuple corresponds to (Q, , , , q 0 , z0 ). This
figure also shows the CFG productions generated following the PDA
moves. The method used to generate each production is the following.
Each step is explained with a suitable section heading.