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Automata Theory: Lecture 8, 9

This document discusses nondeterminism in automata theory. It begins with reviewing deterministic finite automata (DFA) and then introduces nondeterministic finite automata (NFA) which allow multiple transitions from a state for a single symbol. NFAs are easier to construct from regular expressions. The document provides examples of constructing NFAs from regular expressions. It discusses how nondeterminism can be visualized using computation trees but requires more time complexity. It formally defines NFAs and extended transition functions for NFAs. It discusses how to eliminate nondeterminism from NFAs by eliminating epsilon transitions.

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Badar Rasheed Butt
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38 views20 pages

Automata Theory: Lecture 8, 9

This document discusses nondeterminism in automata theory. It begins with reviewing deterministic finite automata (DFA) and then introduces nondeterministic finite automata (NFA) which allow multiple transitions from a state for a single symbol. NFAs are easier to construct from regular expressions. The document provides examples of constructing NFAs from regular expressions. It discusses how nondeterminism can be visualized using computation trees but requires more time complexity. It formally defines NFAs and extended transition functions for NFAs. It discusses how to eliminate nondeterminism from NFAs by eliminating epsilon transitions.

Uploaded by

Badar Rasheed Butt
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Automata Theory

Lecture 8, 9
Lecture objective
Nondeterminism & NFA
Do you remember the definition of DFA?
Before to proceed let’s get familiar with a
definition
Extended transition function

δ* (p , abc) = s
What if we’re allowed to have multiple
edges for one symbol from a state?

It’ll become easy to


construct directly from
RegEx. Isn’t it?
More examples
• Lets construct NFA’s directly from following regular expressions
• (a+b)*a
• a(a+b)*
• a(a+b)*a
• (a+b)*aa(a+b)*
• (a+b)*aa(a+b)* + (a+b)*bb(a+b)*
• (ab)* ab* + ab*

• And we’ll see later reverse is also possible and very simple
Nondeterminism
• Benefits:
• Easy to construct from RE and vice versa.
• Difficulties:
• It doesn’t represent an explicit algorithm for accepting a language. Because
algorithm is actually a sequence of steps which
• Are determined by input and may not change for single input if algorithm is executed
many times.
Nondeterminism- Handling difficulty
• Computation tree can be used to
visualize possible sequences for a
string.
• Using DFS and backtracking right
path could be searched.
• But practically we’ve to pay in
terms of time complexity.

Input: aaaabaab
NFA with ^ transition
Another variation

Computation tree for


Input: aababa
Nondeterministic FA – Formal definition
Observe the difference
Extended transition function for NFA
• To define δ∗(q, xa) where x∈∑* and a∈∑
• δ∗(q, x) gives a set of states and for each state p of this set δ(p, a) is
itself a set. So to include all possibilities

δ∗(q, xa) =

δ∗(q0, aab) = δ∗(δ∗(q0, aa), b) = δ∗(δ∗(δ(q0, a), a), b)


= δ∗(δ∗(q1, a), b) U δ∗(δ∗(q2, a), b)
= δ∗(q0, b) U δ∗(q3, b)
= q4 U q0
Lets do some exercises

δ∗(q0, aab) = ?
δ∗(q0, bab) = ?
δ∗(q0, abababa) = ?
δ∗(q0, aabba) = ?
What about ^ transitions if allowed in NFA?
Of course extended transition function will be changed.
Caring of ^ transition
• ^-closure of a set of states
Final extended transition function for NFA
and definition of acceptance
δ∗(q0, ^) = ?
Lets do some more exercises δ∗(q0, a) = ?
By applying both ^(S) and δ∗ δ∗(q0, ab) = ?
δ∗(q0, aba) = ?
Is DFA = NFA?
Eliminating Nondeterminism
• Causes of Nondeterminism
1. Multiple edges
2. ^ transitions
1. Eliminating ^ transitions
a. If ^ is word in languages then make start state in new model accept state as
well.
b. Eliminate ^ transitions.
c. Introduce new multiple edges.
Eliminating ^ transitions

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