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Myhill Nerode

Notes on myhill-nerode theorem

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64 views3 pages

Myhill Nerode

Notes on myhill-nerode theorem

Uploaded by

arnavagrawal64
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Myhill-Nerode Theorem

Arnav Agrawal (2K22/CO/89)


September 8, 2024

1 Introduction
The Myhill Nerode Theorem was given by John Myhill and Anil Nerode in 1958 and is a fundamental
aspect of Theory of Computation. It is used to prove whether a language is regular or not. Another
use of this theorem is for the minimization of a Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA).
Firstly, a language is considered a regular language if
• There exists a finite automaton (DFA or NFA) that recognizes L and accepts all strings in L, or
• There exists a regular expression that describes L, or

• There exists a regular grammar that generates all the strings in L.


”DFA minimization” refers to the process of reducing the number of states in a DFA while preserving
the language it recognizes. The goal is to produce the smallest DFA (in terms of states) that accepts
the same language as the original DFA.

2 Checking for Regular Languages


2.1 Definition
Let L be any language over Σ*. Consider two strings x, y ( x, y ϵ Σ* ) are said to be in same class if
all possible strings (every string) z (z ϵ Σ*), either xz or yz are in L or both are not.
1. a language L divides the set of all possible strings into mutually exclusive classes

2. if L is regular then the number of classes created by L is finite.


3. if number of classes L creates is finite then L is regular.

2.2 Example
Consider L = {string ending with 0} where Σ={0,1}.
Now the language will divide the given Σ into two parts which are ”strings ending with 0” and ”strings
ending with 1”. Now we consider any two strings x and y then concatenate the strings with z and
check if :
{xz & yz ϵ L} or xz & yz ∈ / L}
From strings ending in 0 {0,10,110,1010,...}
Let x={010} and y={100}
From strings ending in 1 {1,101,11,01,001,...}
Let z={101}
Now we concatenate the strings to get xz={010101} and yz={100101} and as we can see both xz &
yz ∈
/ L.
Thus we can conclude that the language is regular.

1
Figure 1: This is the DFA for the language ’String ending with 0’

3 Minimization of DFA
3.1 Definition
To obtain the minimal and equivalent version of any DFA, which consists of the fewest possible states,
DFA minimization is required. A DFA can be converted to its equivalent DFA with the least number
of states by using the Myhill-Nerode theorem. This minimization technique is also known as the ”table
filling method.”

3.2 Steps to minimize given DFA


1. Draw a table for all pairs of states (P,Q).

2. Mark all pairs where P ϵ F and Q ∈


/ F ( F being a Final State)
3. If there are any unmarked pairs (P,Q) such that [ δ(P,x), δ(Q,x)] is marked, the mark (P,Q) ,
where ’x’ is an input symbol.
4. Repeat step 3 until no more markings can be made

5. Combine all the unmarked pairs and make them a single state in the minimized DFA.

3.3 Example
Consider the following DFA

Following the steps stated above first we will create a table. Then we mark the state pairs (P,Q) where
P is a final state and Q is a non-final state.

2
Now we follow step no. 3 and 4 in which we check whether from the unmarked pairs above, if we
transition as [ δ(P,x), δ(Q,x)] and the pair (P’,Q’) is marked then we mark (P,Q). Then we get

Then finally after completing the table we can follow step 5 to create a minimized DFA.

Final minimized DFA.

4 References
• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/minimization-of-dfa-using-myhill-nerode-theorem/
• https://nesoacademy.org/cs/04-theory-of-computation
• Hopcroft and Ullman, Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation, Pearson
Education

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