Formal Languages & Finite Theory of

Automata
BS Course

Slide # : 01(a)
Muhammad Faizan Tahir
 Your Responsibility

As a Student:
1.Attend classes regularly.
2.Ask question if you have any queries regarding course
material or anything.
3.Submit assignment in time.
4.Don’t miss quizzes, assignments and examinations-
Can get good result.
5.No Plagiarism is allowed in any sort of a writer
material – Write in your own words.
 Course policy

• Assignments:
• Assignments are due at the beginning of class.
• Late assignment will not be accepted.
• All works have to be done independently except in case
of group assignments.
• Students handing in similar assignments will receive a
grade of 0 (Zero).
• Attendance:
• Students are expected to attend all classes.
 Marks Distribution

Category Marks
Assignments 15%
Quiz 10%
Attendance / Class Participation 10%
Midterm 25%
Final 40%
 Course Information
• The course deals with the concept of
computability and mathematical
models, such as finite automata,
grammars and Turing machines, and
the relations between these models.
 Course Information
• The following topics are treated:

• Automata: finite automata, stack automata and

Turing machines. Determinism and non-
determinism. Regular expressions, transformation
from regular expressions to finite automata and
conversely, minimization of deterministic finite
automata, Automata associated with output (Moore
& Mealy Machines ), Pushdown Automata (PDA).
 Course Information
• Formal languages: grammars, Chomsky’s
hierarchy, in particular context-free grammars
and regular grammars, closure properties. The
relation between grammars and variants of
automata. The pumping lemmas for regular
and context-free languages, respectively. The
universal machine, the halting problem and
other undecidable problems, Rice’s theorem.
 Learning Outcomes
• On successful completion of this course you will be able to:
• Give an account of important concepts and definitions for
automata and formal languages;
• Exemplify and interpret important concepts in specific cases;
• Formulate important results and theorems covered by the course;
• Describe the main features of the proofs of important theorems;
• Express problems from relevant areas of applications in a
mathematical form suitable for further analysis;
• Use the theory, methods and techniques of the course to solve
mathematical problems;
 Recommended Books
• Automata Theory, Languages and Computation,
3rded., John Hopcroft & Jeffery Ullman, ISBN: 978-
0321455369

• An Introduction to Formal Languages & Automata,

6th ed., Peter Linz, ISBN: 978-1284077247
 What does Automata mean?

• The term "Automata" is derived from the

Greek word "αὐτόματα" which means "self-
acting".
• It is the plural of automaton, and it means
“something that works automatically”
 What is automata theory
• Automata theory is the study of abstract
computational devices, or machines
• Abstract devices are (simplified) models of
real computations
• Computations happen everywhere: On your
laptop, on your cell phone, in nature, …
• A fundamental question in computer science:
– Find out what different models of machines can do and
cannot do
– The theory of computation
 Examples
• Vending Machine
• Words Generation in language
• Circuit Board in Electronics
• Games
• Probability
• Traffic Signals
• Speech Recognition
• Regular Expression in Security & Validation
• Real life problems, etc…
 What is automata theory
• Finite automata are finite collections of states
with transition rules that take you from one
state to another.
• Original application was sequential switching
circuits, where the “state” was the settings of
internal bits.
• Today, several kinds of software can be
modeled by FA.
 Representing FA
• Simplest representation is often a
graph.
– Nodes = states.
– Arcs indicate state transitions.
– Labels on arcs tell what causes the
transition.
 Alan Turing (1912-1954)
A Pioneer of Automata Theory
• Father of Modern Computer
Science
• English mathematician
• Studied abstract machines called
Turing machines even before
computers existed
• Heard of the Turing test?
 Turing Machine by Alan Turing
• A Turing machine is a kind of state machine. At any
time the machine is in any one of a finite number of
states. Instructions for a Turing machine consist in
specified conditions under which the machine will
transition between one state and another.
• A Turing machine is a system of rules, states and
transitions rather than a real machine. ... There are
two purposes of a Turing machine. Either it can be
used to decide a formal language or it solves
mathematical functions.
Theory of Computation: A Historical
Perspective
1930s • Alan Turing studies Turing machines
• Decidability
• Halting problem
1940-1950s • “Finite automata” machines studied
• Noam Chomsky proposes the
“Chomsky Hierarchy” for formal
languages
1969 Cook introduces “intractable” problems
or “NP-Hard” problems
1970- Modern computer science: compilers,
computational & complexity theory evolve
Chomsky Hierarchy
 In Mathematics
• An automaton is an abstract machine, i.e. a
mathematical model.
• In particular, a finite-state machine or finite
state automaton, is a mathematical model of
computer hardware and software, mostly
used for compilers (cf. programming
languages) and natural language processing
(NLP) and computational linguistics.
 Real Examples of FA
• Software for designing and checking the behavior of digital circuits.
• The lexical analyzer of a typical compiler that is the compiler
component that breaks the input text into logical units such as
identifiers
keywords and punctuation.
• Software for scanning large bodies of text such as collections of Web
pages to find occurrences of words phrases or other patterns.
• Software for verifying systems of all types that have finite number of
distinct states such as communications protocols or protocols for
secure
exchange of information
Sets
Graphs
 A Simple Computer

BATTERY

input: switch
output: light bulb
actions: flip switch
states: on, off
 A Simple Computer

f
BATTERY
start off on
f

input: switch
bulb is on if and only if
output: light bulb
there was an odd number of
actions: f for “flip switch” flips
states: on, off
 Another “computer”
1
1 start off off
1

BATTERY 2 2 2 2
1
2
off on
1
inputs: switches 1 and 2
bulb is on if and only if
actions: 1 for “flip switch 1”
both switches were flipped
actions: 2 for “flip switch 2”
an odd number of times
states: on, off
 Example 02
• Modeling recognition of the word “then”

Start state Transition Intermediate Final state

state
Some Basic Terms
 Introduction to languages

• There are two types of languages

– Formal Languages (Syntactic languages)

– Informal Languages (Semantic languages)
 Alphabets

• Definition:
A finite non-empty set of symbols (letters), is
called an alphabet. It is denoted by Σ ( Greek
letter sigma).
• Example:
Σ={a,b}
Σ={0,1} //important as this is the language
//which the computer understands.
Σ={i,j,k}
 Strings

• Definition:
Concatenation of finite symbols from the alphabet
is called a string.
• Example:
If Σ= {a,b} then
a, abab, aaabb, ababababababababab
 NOTE:

EMPTY STRING or NULL STRING

• Sometimes a string with no symbol at all is used,
denoted by (Small Greek letter Lambda) λ or
(Capital Greek letter Lambda) Λ, is called an empty
string or null string.
The capital lambda will mostly be used to denote
the empty string, in further discussion.
 Words

• Definition:
Words are strings belonging to some
language.
Example:
If Σ= {x} then a language L can be defined as
L={xn : n=1,2,3,…..} or L={x,xx,xxx,….}
Here x,xx,… are the words of L
 NOTE

• All words are strings, but not all strings are

words.
 Length of Strings
• Definition:
The length of string s, denoted by |s|, is the
number of letters in the string.
• Example:
Σ={a,b}
s=ababa
|s|=5
 Length of Strings
• Example:
Σ= {B, aB, bab, d}
s=BaBbabBd
Tokenizing=(B), (aB), (bab), (B), (d)
|s|=5
 Reverse of a String
• Definition:
The reverse of a string s denoted by Rev(s) or s r,
is obtained by writing the letters of s in reverse
order.
• Example:
If s=abc is a string defined over Σ={a,b,c}
then Rev(s) or sr = cba
 Reverse of a String
• Example:
Σ= {B, aB, bab, d}
s=BaBbabBd
Rev(s)=dBbabaBB
 Kleene Star Closure

• Given Σ, then the Kleene Star Closure of the

alphabet Σ, denoted by Σ*, is the collection of
all strings defined over Σ, including Λ.
• It is to be noted that Kleene Star Closure can
be defined over any set of strings.
 Example – Kleene Star Closure
• If Σ = {x}
Then Σ* = {Λ, x, xx, xxx, xxxx, ….}
• If Σ = {0,1}
Then Σ* = {Λ, 0, 1, 00, 01, 10, 11, ….}
• If Σ = {aaB, c} d
Then Σ* = {Λ, aaB, c, aaBaaB, aaBc, caaB,
cc, ….}
 Kleene Star Closure
• Languages generated by Kleene Star Closure
of set of strings, are infinite languages. (By
infinite language, it is supposed that the
language contains infinite many words, each
of finite length).
 PLUS Operation ( ) +

• Plus Operation is same as Kleene Star Closure

except that it does not generate Λ (null
string), automatically.
Example:
• If Σ = {0,1}
Then Σ+ = {0, 1, 00, 01, 10, 11, ….}
• If Σ = {aab, c}
Then Σ+ = {aab, c, aabaab, aabc, caab, cc, ….}
 Task
Q1)Is there any case when S+ contains Λ? If yes
then justify your answer.

Q2) Prove that for any set of strings S

i. (S+)*=(S*)*
ii. (S+)+=S+
iii. (S*)+=(S+)*
Defining Languages
 Defining Languages
• The languages can be defined in different ways ,
such as Descriptive definition, Recursive
definition, using Regular Expressions(RE) and
using Finite Automaton(FA) etc.

Descriptive definition of language:

The language is defined, describing the
conditions imposed on its words.
 Defining Languages
• Example:
The language L of strings of odd length,
defined over Σ={a}, can be written as
L={a, aaa, aaaaa,…..}
• Example:
The language L of strings that does not start
with a, defined over Σ={a,b,c}, can be written
as
L={b, c, ba, bb, bc, ca, cb, cc, …}
 Defining Languages
• Example:
The language L of strings of length 2, defined
over Σ={0,1,2}, can be written as
L={00, 01, 02,10, 11,12,20,21,22}
• Example:
The language L of strings ending in 0, defined
over Σ ={0,1}, can be written as
L={0,00,10,000,010,100,110,…}
 Defining Languages
• Example: The language EQUAL, of strings with
number of a’s equal to number of b’s, defined
over Σ={a,b}, can be written as
{Λ ,ab,aabb,abab,baba,abba,…}
• Example: The language EVEN-EVEN, of strings
with even number of a’s and even number of
b’s, defined over Σ={a,b}, can be written as
{Λ, aa, bb, aaaa,aabb,abab, abba, baab, baba,
bbaa, bbbb,…}
 Defining Languages
• Example: The language INTEGER, of strings
defined over Σ={-,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}, can be
written as
INTEGER = {…,-2,-1,0,1,2,…}
• Example: The language EVEN, of stings defined
over Σ={-,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}, can be written as
EVEN = { …,-4,-2,0,2,4,…}
 Defining Languages
• Example: The language {anbn }, of strings
defined over Σ={a,b}, as
{an bn : n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
{ab, aabb, aaabbb,aaaabbbb,…}

• Example: The language {anbnan }, of strings

defined over Σ={a,b}, as
{an bn an: n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
{aba, aabbaa, aaabbbaaa,aaaabbbbaaaa,…}
 Defining Languages
• Example: The language SQUARE, of strings
defined over Σ={a}, as
{an : n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
2

{a, aaaa, aaaaaaaaa,…}

• Example: The language DOUBLESQUARE, of
strings defined over Σ={a,b}, as
{an bn : n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
2 2

{ab, aaaabbbb, aaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbb,…}

 Defining Languages
• Example: The language PRIME, of strings
defined over Σ={a}, as
{ap : p is prime}, can be written as
{aa,aaa,aaaaa,aaaaaaa,aaaaaaaaaaa…}
 An Important language
• PALINDROME:
The language consisting of Λ and the strings s
defined over Σ such that Rev(s)=s.
It is to be denoted that the words of
PALINDROME are called palindromes.
• Example:For Σ={a,b},
PALINDROME={Λ , a, b, aa, bb, aaa, aba, bab,
bbb, ...}
THANK YOU