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COMP314 - things to focus on

The document outlines key concepts and definitions essential for understanding formal languages and automata, including DFA, NFA, Turing machines, and grammars. It emphasizes the importance of both heavy recall and application/understanding type questions, such as proving properties of regular languages and designing machines. Additionally, it provides references to useful resources and concepts related to context-free languages and the Chomsky hierarchy.

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Luyanda Ngcamu
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5 views4 pages

COMP314 - things to focus on

The document outlines key concepts and definitions essential for understanding formal languages and automata, including DFA, NFA, Turing machines, and grammars. It emphasizes the importance of both heavy recall and application/understanding type questions, such as proving properties of regular languages and designing machines. Additionally, it provides references to useful resources and concepts related to context-free languages and the Chomsky hierarchy.

Uploaded by

Luyanda Ngcamu
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 PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Things to focus on when you learn

Heavy recall type ques ons:


At the very least you should be able to recall the following:

 Formal defini on of DFA, NFA, PDA, NPDA, Turing machine i.e. be able to give the N-tuple
defini on and explain what each symbol means.
 Know all the formal symbols for input, output, transi ons etc.
 Formal defini on of a grammar i.e. be able to give the N-Tuple defini on and explain what each
symbol means
 Formal defini on of the pumping lemma
 Formal defini on of a homomorphism
 Prove that every NFA can be converted to an equivalent one with a single accept state
 Prove the pumping lemma
 Given L1 and L2 are regular be able to provide a formal proof for:
o 𝐿1 ∩ 𝐿2 also being regular
o 𝐿1𝐿2 also being regular
o 𝐿1 also being regular
o Be able to prove things as a result of the proper es we know of regular languages. Look
at your tuts again i.e. varia ons of these known proper es what can we deduce.
 What does what is a Generalised transi on graph, what does nondeterminis c mean, what does
decidable mean, what does computable mean, what is an alphabet.
 What is the me complexity of a FA?
 Know the four levels of Chomsky Hierarchy – what do the levels tell us?
 What is the hal ng problem?
 What are the two states that a Turing machine must contain?
 Be able to draw the block diagram of the blank tape hal ng construc on.

Applica on/Understanding type ques ons:


 DFA – look at binary strings with exactly twos 0s, at least two 0s, even number of chars, odd
number of chars, a 0 followed by another character and combina ons of these. What about a
string that does NOT contain 010. Can you do these types of things with a limited alphabet such
as abc.
 Be able to iden fy a Moore or Mealy machine, and given one give the defini on for that
machine.
 Be able to design a Moore or Mealy machine, given a simple example.
 Given a DFA be able to provide the defini on for that machine including lis ng all transi ons (a
transi on table may be used here if you like).
 Use subset construc on to convert a NFA to DFA.
 Given a NFA and understanding Thompson’s construc on be able to give a Regular expression for
the NFA.
 Given a descrip on of a language be able to provide a context-free grammar as a set of
produc on rules that generate that language.
 Given a grammar G (as a set of produc on rules)
o be able to give a regular expression for L(G)
o Construct le most deriva ons of a string from the grammar
o Build deriva on trees for these strings
o Construct an umabiguous grammar equivalent to G
o Provide a formal defini on for that grammar.
o Be able to covert the grammar into Chomsky normal form.
o Be able to covert the grammar into Greibach normal form
 Be able to determine the minimum pumping length of a given language.
 Be able to determine if a language is a regular language, context-free language etc
 For a given language, be able to determine appropriate x,y and z strings to use with the pumping
lemma, and prove that the language is not regular.
 For a given language, use the pumping lemma to show that a language is not regular eg the
infamous nonregular language {anbn n>=0} and others discussed in class/videos.
 Be able to complete a par ally complete PDA for a non-regular language
o such as the infamous one men oned in the point above
o or what about xnymzp where n>m or n>p and n,m,p >=0 and other varia ons of
superscripts.
o or what about wwR - does the PDA change if |W| can be 0 or if |W| is > 0
 Be able to read a PDA state diagram and Turing Machine and figure out what it does. Will it
accept or reject the input.
 Be able to complete a par ally complete Turing Machine
 Be able to design a PDA or Turing Machine given the specs of the language.
 Be able to determine the input alphabet and stack/tape/output alphabet given a diagram or
specifica on of a PDA/Turing/Mealy or Moore machine.
 Ba able to provide a Turing machine given the transi on table
o Note – if you are given a transi on table with 3 values in the cell then the first row
(column headings) of the table contains the input symbols i.e. what is on tape at the
posi on of the tape head, the first column will contain the current state, and each cell
will contain the new state, write symbol, L or R movement of tape head.

Symbol read
New
state write

symbol Direc on of tape head

 Some Turing machines have an infinite tape to the le and right, and some have a finite tape to
the le . If it is finite to the le what happens if you try and write to the le of the end of the
tape?
 Is the Hal ng problem decidable?
 What does decidable mean? What does computable mean?
 Where is an FA considered to be NonDeterminis c?

Some useful links/concepts to understand.

Remember that regular grammars are all context-free grammars, context-free grammars are all
recursively enumerable etc. So if you can create a DFA for the language, then can create a PDA and/or
Tutoring machine for the language too, but not vice versa. Regular grammars are a subset of context-
free grammars.

Taken from h ps://brilliant.org/wiki/context-free-


languages/#:~:text=Context%2Dfree%20languages%20(CFLs),subset%20of%20context%2Dfree%20langu
ages.

Taken from Chomsky Hierarchy of Language - KEY NOTES

Taken from - h p://www.asethome.org/mathfounda ons/introduc on.html


Score Report: Unit 2 - Regular Languages and Finite Automata at Free Online Quiz School (proprofs.com)

Big O Cheat Sheet – Time Complexity Chart (freecodecamp.org)

What is the complexity of a FA?

Hal ng problem - Wikipedia

What is Non-Determinis c Polynomial Time (NP)? - Defini on from Techopedia

Note: While converting an NFA with n states to a DFA, 2n possible set of states can
be reachable but not necessarily reached in the DFA.

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