DVA337 HT17 - LECTURE 4 Languages and regular

expressions

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SO FAR

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TODAY
Formal definition of languages
 in terms of strings

Operations on strings and languages

Definition of regular expressions
Meaning of regular expressions in terms of languages
Outlook: practical use of regular expressions

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LANGUAGES alphabets, strings, and
languages

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LANGUAGE
How can we define what a (formal) language is?

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LANGUAGE
We define a language to be a set of strings over an alphabet Σ
An alphabet is a set of symbols, e.g., { a, b, c, ..., z }
A string over an alphabet Σ is a sequence of symbols from the alphabet

What is the alphabet for the language

 L = { apple, pear, 1911 }
 L = { x : x is a binary string }

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EXERCISE, LANGUAGE
How can we define the alphabet and language for

1) the programming language C?

2) written English?

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STRINGS
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STRINGS
For a1, a2, ... , an ∈ Σ the sequence a1a2 ... an is a string over Σ
The empty string is written λ

What are the strings over Σ = { a, b }?

Let u, v, w denote strings

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CONCATENATION
For u = a1a2 ... an and v = b1b2 ... bn what is the concatenation of u and v, written uv?

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PREFIX AND SUFFIX
For a string w = u v
 u is a prefix
 v is a suffix

All prefixes and suffixes for abbab?

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SUBSTRING
For a string w = u1 v u2
 v is a substring
 prefix and suffix special cases of substring

Substrings of abbab?

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LENGTH
For string w = a1a2 ... an, the length is n, |w| = n
 |λ| = 0
 |abbab| = 5

How can we define length recursively?

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PROOF BY INDUCTION
Induction over natural numbers

To show that a property P holds for all natural numbers, ∀n ∈ ℕ . P(n), show

A base case, e.g., P(0)

An inductive step, ∀n ∈ ℕ . P(n) → P(n+1)

Why can we conclude ∀n ∈ ℕ . P(n) from this?

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EXERCISE, LENGTH OF CONCATENATION
What is |u v| ?

Can we prove it?

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LENGTH OF CONCATENATION
Theorem: |u v| = |u| + |v|
Proof: By induction on the length of v.

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REVERSE
For a string w = a1a2 ... an what is the reverse wR of w?

What is a palindrome?

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REPETITION
Let wn be w repeated n times, w w ... w

Can you write a recursive definition of wn?

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 N
Σ, STRINGS OF LENGTH N
Let Σn be the set of strings of length n over Σ
For Σ = {a, b}
 Σ0 = { λ }
 Σ1 = { a, b }
 Σ2 = { aa, ab, ba, bb }

How can we define Σn?

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Σ*, KLEENE CLOSURE
Σ* is the set of all strings over Σ
{a,b}* = { λ, a, b, aa, bb, ab, ba, aaa, bbb, ... }

How can we define Σ*?

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Σ*, KLEENE CLOSURE
We have that Σ* = Σ0 ∪ Σ1 ∪ ..., where
 Σ0 = { λ }
 Σn+1 = { x y : x ∈ Σ, y ∈ Σn }

Can we use this to define Σ*?

 as a fixpoint to F(S) ⊆ S for some F?

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 +
Σ , POSITIVE CLOSURE
Let Σ+ = Σ1 ∪ Σ2 ∪ ...

How can we define the positive closure?

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EXERCISE
For Σ = {a, b} what is the cardinality of Σ3?
In general, what is the cardinality of Σn?

For Σ as below, give Σ* and Σ+

 Σ = { 0, 1 }
Σ={a}
Σ={}

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EXERCISE
Prove that |Σn| = |Σ|n

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LANGUAGES
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LANGUAGE
A language L is a set of strings over an alphabet Σ
A language L is a subset of Σ*
For
 Σ = { a, b }
 Σ* = { λ, a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa, aab, ... }

Examples of languages over Σ?

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EXERCISE
What is P(Σ*)?

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SET OPERATIONS ON LANGUAGES
Since language are sets, the standard set operations apply.
For L1 = {a, b, aaa} and L2 = {bb, ab},
what is
 L1 ∪ L2
 L1 ∩ L2
 L1 ∖ L2

What is the complement of a language, L∁

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REVERSAL AND CONCATENATION
Reversal and concatenation carry over from strings in the natural way

Reversal, LR = { wR : w ∈ L }
 { ab, aab, baba }R
 {anbn : n ≥ 0 }

Concatenation, L1L2 = { u v : u ∈ L1, v ∈ L2 }

 { ab, aab, baba }{b,aa}

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REPETITION
With concatenation of languages defined, we can define repetition

L0 = { λ }
Ln+1 = { u v : u ∈ L, v ∈ Ln }

For L = { anbn : n ≥ 0}
 what is L2?
 what is L0?

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CLOSURES
With repetition we can define Kleene closure and positive closure for languages

L* = L0 ∪ L1 ∪ ...
L+ = L1 ∪ L2 ∪ ...

What is L* in words?
If L* = L we say that L is Kleene closed
 Is C Kleene closed?

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SUMMARY
An alphabet, Σ, is a set of symbols
A string is a sequence of symbols
 concatenation, reverse, length, substring, prefix, suffix, repetition
 Kleene closure Σ*, and positive closure Σ+

A language over Σ is a set of strings; a subset of Σ*

 union, intersection, difference, complement
 reverse, concatenation, repetition
 Kleene closure L*, and positive closure L+ (c.f., Σ* and Σ+ )

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WHY IS THIS USEFUL?
Broad definition: any set of strings on an alphabet is a language

Methods of defining language

 grammars

Methods of deciding membership in languages

 How to answer the questions if a given string is in a given language
 Can membership always be decided?

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REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
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REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
∅, λ, and any α ∈ Σ are primitive regular expressions
If r1 and r2 are regular expressions, then so are
r1 + r2,
r1r2,
r* , and
(r)

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EXERCISE
Is (a + bc)*(c+λ) a regular expression?

Is (a + b +) a regular expression?

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INTUITIVE MEANING
Each regular expression over Σ defines a language over Σ
 think in terms of matching

∅, λ, and any α ∈ Σ are primitive regular expressions

If r1 and r2 are regular expressions, then so are
r1 + r2,
r1r2,
r* , and
(r)

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EXAMPLE
What is the language defined by a + b?

What is the language defined by (ab)*?

Exercise, what is the language defined by (a + bc)*(c+λ)?

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LANGUAGE DEFINED BY REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
How can we define the language of a
regular expression more formally?
Can we build a recursive function, L(r)
that defines the language of a regular
expression r?

Remember
 a language is a set of strings
 we have defined operations on languages:
union, concatenation, Kleene star

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EXAMPLE
What is L((a + b)a*)?

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EXERCISE
What is the language defined by (a+b)*(a+bb)

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ON PRECEDENCE
What is the language defined by (a + b)a

What is the language defined by a + (ba)

Which one is a + ba?

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EXERCISE
What is the language defined by (aa)*(bb)*b?

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EXAMPLE
Create a regular expression over Σ = { 0, 1 } that defines the language where all
strings have at least two consecutive 0s
 001 ∈ L
 010 ∉ L

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EXERCISE
Construct the regular expression over { 0, 1 } where no string has two consecutive 0s.
 010 ∈ L
 001 ∉ L

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EQUIVALENCE OF REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
Two regular expressions are equivalent if they define the same language

L = { all strings over {0, 1} without consecutive 0 }

r1 = (1+01)*(0+λ)
r2 = (1+011*)*(0+λ)+1*(0+λ)

Since L = L(r1) = L(r2) we have that r1 and r2 are equivalent.

Can we prove that L(r1) = L(r2) in some way?

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REGULAR EXPRESSIONS IN REALITY
Slightly richer alphabet and language than what we saw here, e.g.,
 quantifiers: *, +, ?, {m}, {m,}, {m,n}, …
 atoms: char, [chars], ., ^, $, \char

Example uses
 Lexical analysis - tokenization preceding parsing
 Text search – grep/egrep (unix)

Search for
 gr(a|e)y
 ^[-+]?[0-9]*\.?[0-9]+$

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REGULAR EXPRESSIONS IN COMPILERS
• The programmer creates a program
• The lexer splits the program text into a stream of tokens and removes white space
• Literals: 1, 1.32, “Hello World!” …
• Keywords: if, while, …
• Variables: c, y, counter, …

• The token stream is passed to the parser that creates a parse tree, which is used
by the next step of the compiler – this simplifies the parse as it can work on tokens
rather than on characters.

Text Tokens Binary

Lexer Parser …

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PARTS OF EXAMPLE PASCAL LEXER
white_space [ \t]*

digit [0-9]

alpha [A-Za-z_]

alpha_num ({alpha}|{digit})

hex_digit [0-9A-F]

identifier {alpha}{alpha_num}*

unsigned_integer {digit}+

hex_integer ${hex_digit}{hex_digit}*

exponent e[+-]?{digit}+

i {unsigned_integer}

real ({i}\.{i}?|{i}?\.{i}){exponent}?

string \'([^'\n]|\'\')+\’

and return(AND);

array return(ARRAY);
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begin return(_BEGIN);
EXAMPLE TOKENIZATION
Consider the following PASCAL program
Program Lesson1_Program1;
Begin
Write('Hello World');
Readln;
End.
Which would produce the following token stream

PROGRAM IDENTIFIER BEGIN IDENTIFIER ( STRING ) ; IDENTIFIER ; END .

Note that the tokens are represented by integers and tokens like IDENTIFIER and STRING carry
the actual string representing the token.

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REGULAR LANGUAGES
Topic for the next few lectures
Ways of defining regular language
 Regular Expressions (RE)
 Regular grammars

Ways of deciding membership in regular languages

 DFA and NFA

Equivalence of the approaches

 DFA  NFA  RE

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REGULAR LANGUAGES
Regular Expression

DFA
Regular Language
NFA

Regular Grammar

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DO THE EXERCISES!
Exercise material on the homepage
 exercises similar to what will be on exam

If you get stuck

 ask a friend
 ask me

If several of you have issues with one we’ll add it to a lecture.

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