Scribd
Upload
49 views

Ecture: Regular Expressions

The document discusses regular expressions and their use in defining formal languages. It provides rules for constructing regular expressions over an alphabet and defines important concepts like union, concatenation, Kleene closure, and positive closure. Examples are given of regular expressions defining languages containing strings of letters that meet certain criteria, like starting and ending with a particular letter or having a specified number of a specific letter. The document demonstrates how regular expressions can concisely describe the structure of languages.

Uploaded by

Samita
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
49 views

Ecture: Regular Expressions

The document discusses regular expressions and their use in defining formal languages. It provides rules for constructing regular expressions over an alphabet and defines important concepts like union, concatenation, Kleene closure, and positive closure. Examples are given of regular expressions defining languages containing strings of letters that meet certain criteria, like starting and ending with a particular letter or having a specified number of a specific letter. The document demonstrates how regular expressions can concisely describe the structure of languages.

Uploaded by

Samita
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 19

LECTURE 4

Chapter 4
Regular Expressions
IMPORTANT TERMS
 Regular Expressions
 Regular Languages

 Finite Representations
RECURSIVE DEFINITION OF REGULAR
EXPRESSIONS

 Rule 1: Every letter of ∑ can be made into a


regular expression by writing it in boldface; ^ is a
regular expression.

 Rule 2 :If r1 and r2 are regular expressions, then so


are:

 (rl)
 r1r2
 r1 + r 2
 r l*

 Rule 3 :Nothing else is a regular expression.


IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS
 S + T = {w : w € S or w € T} (Union)
 ST = {w = w1w2 : w1 € S,w2 € T} (Concatenation
or Product)
 S* = S0 + S1 + S2 + · · · (Kleene’s Closure)

 S+ = S1 + S2 + · · · (Positive Closure)
EXAMPLE
 Suppose that we wished to describe the language
L over the alphabet ∑ = {a,b} where L = {a ab
abb abbb abbbb ... }

 R.E= ab*
 (ab)* = ^ or ab or abab or ababab ...
 XX* = X+

 XX* X+ XX*X* X*XX* x x* x*x+ x**x*xx*


EXAMPLE
 ab*a
 language (ab*a) = {aa aba abba abbba abbbba
... .}
EXAMPLE

 The language of the expression a*b*


 contains all the strings of a's and b's in which all
the a's (if any) come before all the b's (if any).
 language (a*b*) = {^ a b aa ab bb aaa aab
abb bbb aaaa . . . }
 Notice that ba and aba are not in this language.
Notice also that there need not be the same
number of a's and b's.
 Here we should again be very careful to observe
that
a*b* ≠ (ab)*
EXAMPLE
 Example: ∑ = {a, b}
 language L of all words starting and ending with
b
 L = {b, bb, bab, bbb, baab, babb, bbab, bbbb, . . .}

 = language(b + b(a + b)*b)


EXAMPLE
 ∑= {a, b}
 language L of all words with exactly two b’s

 L = language(a*ba*ba*)
EXAMPLE:
 ∑ = {a, b}
 language L of all words with at least two b’s

 L = language((a + b)*b(a + b)*b(a + b)*)

 Note that bbaaba E L since


 bbaaba = (^)b(^)b(aaba) = (b)b(aa)b(a)
EXAMPLE:
 language
 L = {aba, abba, bbaab}

 Then a regular expression to define L is

 aba + abba + bbaab


EXAMPLE
 The following expressions both define the
language L2 = {xodd}
 x(xx)* or (xx)*x

 but the expression x*xx* does not since it


includes the word (xx) x (x).
ANOTHER USE PLUS (+) SIGN
 By the expression x + y where x and y are strings
of characters from an alphabet, we mean "either
x or y".
EXAMPLE

 Consider the language T defined over the


alphabet ∑ {a, b, c}

 T = {a c ab cb abb cbb abbb cbbb abbbb


cbbbb ... }

 All the words in T begin with an a or a c and then


are followed by some number of b's. Symbolically,
we may write this as

T = language ((a + c)b*)= language (either a


or c then some b's)
EXAMPLE

 Now let us consider a finite language L that


contains all the strings of a's and b's of length
exactly three.
 L = {aaa aab aba abb baa bab bba bbb}

 The first letter of each word in L is either an a or


a b. The second letter of each word in L is either
an a or a b. The third letter of each word in L is
either an a or a b. So we may write
 L = language ((a + b)(a + b)(a + b))

 or for short, L = language ((a + b)3) •


EXAMPLE CONT…
 If we want to define the set of all seven letter
strings of a's and b's, we could write (a + b)7 . In
general, if we want to refer to the set of all
possible strings of a's and b's of any length
whatsoever we could write,
(a + b)*
 This is the set of all possible strings of letters
from the alphabet ∑ = {a, b}
 (a+b)*= {^ a b ab ba aa bb aba abb…}
EVEN-EVEN LANGUAGE
 EVEN-EVEN = {^ aa bb aabb abab abba
 baab baba bbaa aaaabb aaabab ... }

 E = [aa + bb + (ab+ba)(aa+bb)*(ab+ba)]*

 Type 1 = aa
 Type 2 = bb

 Type 3 = (ab + ba)(aa + bb)*(ab + ba)

 E = [type1 + type2 + type 3]*


EXAMPLE

 Regular expression r  aa  * bb  * b

Lr   {a b 2n 2m
b : n, m  0}

You might also like