THEORY OF AUTOMATA

Lecture 1: Introduction
Lecturer: Zainab Iftikhar
National University of Technology (NUTECH), Islamabad
 OUTLINE

• Automata and the Application of Automata Theory

• Introduction to languages
• Alphabets
• Strings
• Operations on strings
• Words
• Descriptive language
• Operations on languages
• Applications of languages
 INTRODUCTION

• One of the main goals of theoretical computer science is the mathematical study of
computation
• Computability : what can be computed ?
• Tractability : what can be efficiently computed ?
• The mathematical study of computation requires
• Abstract models of computation : automata theory
• Abstract representations of problems/data : formal language theory
 AUTOMATA

• Automata is the plural of automaton, and it means “something that works automatically”.
• Automata uses rules to process input and transition between different states.
• Applications of Automata Theory:
• Compiler Design & Programming Languages: Lexical analysis and parsing use finite automata and context-free
grammars (CFG) to convert high-level programming code into machine code.
• Text Processing: Spell checkers, autocomplete, and plagiarism detection use finite automata to process text
efficiently.
• Cybersecurity: Automata theory helps in intrusion detection systems (IDS) by identifying malicious patterns in
network traffic.
• Robotics & Control Systems: Finite state machines (FSMs) help design control systems in robotics.
• Network Protocol Design: Communication protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, Bluetooth) use state machines to ensure
correct message sequencing.
• Game Development: Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) in video games behave using finite state machines.
 APPLICATIONS OF AUTOMATA THEORY

• Example: Elevator
• States
i. Open
ii. Close
• Input
• Button press
• The states change when input is processed.

Button press
closed open
 INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGES

• There are two types of languages

• Formal languages (Syntactic languages)
• Informal languages (Semantic languages)
 LANGUAGES

• Alphabet:
A finite non-empty set of symbols (letters), is called an alphabet. It is denoted by Σ.
• String:
A string is a finite sequence of symbols drawn from some alphabet Σ.
• Can be empty/null (denoted as 𝜀)
• The set of all possible strings over an alphabet Σ is written as Σ ∗
• Examples:

Note: In a computer’s memory, everything is a (binary) string.

 LANGUAGES

• Words:
Strings belonging to some language.
• Example:
• If Σ = {𝑥} then a language 𝐿 can be defined as 𝐿 = {𝑥𝑛 ∶ 𝑛 = 1,2,3, … . . } or 𝐿 =
{𝑥, 𝑥𝑥, 𝑥𝑥𝑥, … . }
• Here 𝑥, 𝑥𝑥, … are the words of 𝐿

Note: All words are strings, but not all strings are words.
 EXERCISE

• For a language {𝑎, 𝑏}, consider two alphabets:

Σ1 = {𝐵, 𝑎𝐵, 𝑏𝑎𝑏, 𝑑} and Σ2 = {𝐵, 𝐵𝑎, 𝑏𝑎𝑏, 𝑑}.

1. Identify which alphabet the string 𝐵𝑎𝑏𝑎𝑏𝐵 belongs to.

2. Why Can the string 𝐵𝑎𝑏𝑎𝑏𝐵 not be constructed using symbols from both alphabets?
3. Is Σ₁ a subset of Σ₂?
4. List three more strings that can be formed using Σ₁.
5. List three more strings that can be formed using Σ₂.

• Consider the language 𝐿 = {1𝑛2𝑛 ∶ 𝑛 > 0}. Is the string 122 in 𝐿?

 STRING OPERATIONS

• Length of a string:
The length of string s, denoted by |𝑠|, is the number of letters in the string.
• Example:
• If Σ = {𝑎, 𝑏} and 𝑠 = 𝑎𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑎, |𝑠| = 5
• If Σ = {𝐵, 𝑎𝐵, 𝑏𝑎𝑏, 𝑑} and 𝑠 = 𝐵𝑎𝐵𝑏𝑎𝑏𝐵𝑑, |𝑠| = ?
• Note: |𝜀| = 0
• Reverse of a string:
The reverse of a string s denoted by 𝑅𝑒𝑣(𝑠) or 𝑠𝑟, is obtained by writing the letters of s in
reverse order.
• Example:
• If 𝑠 = 𝑎𝑏𝑐 is a string defined over Σ = {𝑎, 𝑏, 𝑐}, then 𝑅𝑒𝑣(𝑠) = 𝑐𝑏𝑎
• If Σ = {𝐵, 𝑎𝐵, 𝑏𝑎𝑏, 𝑑} and 𝑠 = 𝐵𝑎𝐵𝑏𝑎𝑏𝐵𝑑, then 𝑅𝑒𝑣(𝑠) = ?
 STRING OPERATIONS

• Concatenation:
• The concatenation of two strings 𝑠 and 𝑡, written 𝑠 || 𝑡 or simply 𝑠𝑡, is the string formed by
appending 𝑡 to 𝑠.
• 𝑠 ∣∣ 𝑡 = "abc" ∣∣ "de" = "abcde“
• 𝑠 ∣∣ 𝑡 = "hello" ∣∣ "world" = "helloworld"
• Relations on Strings:
• A string 𝑠 is a substring of a string 𝑡 iff 𝑠 occurs contiguously as part of 𝑡.
• For example:
• 𝑎𝑎𝑎 is a substring of 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑎𝑎𝑎
• 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 is not a substring of 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑎𝑎𝑎
 LANGUAGES

• A language is a (finite or infinite) set of strings over a finite alphabet Σ.

Let Σ = {𝑎, 𝑏} and Σ∗ = {𝜀, 𝑎, 𝑏, 𝑎𝑎, 𝑎𝑏, 𝑏𝑎, 𝑏𝑏, 𝑎𝑎𝑎, 𝑎𝑎𝑏, … }.
Some examples of languages over Σ are:
∅, {𝜀}, {𝑎, 𝑏}, {𝜀, 𝑎, 𝑎𝑎, 𝑎𝑎𝑎, 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎, 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎}, {𝜀, 𝑎, 𝑎𝑎, 𝑎𝑎𝑎, 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎, 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎, … }

• The languages can be defined in different ways

• Descriptive definition
• Using Regular Expressions (RE)
• Using Finite Automaton (FA)
 DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE

• The language is defined, describing the conditions imposed on its words.

• Examples:
• The language 𝐿 of strings of odd length, defined over Σ = {𝑎}, can be written as
• 𝐿 = {𝑎, 𝑎𝑎𝑎, 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎, … . . }
• The language 𝐿 of strings that does not start with a, defined over Σ = {𝑎, 𝑏, 𝑐}, can be written as
• 𝐿 = {𝜀, 𝑏, 𝑐, 𝑏𝑎, 𝑏𝑏, 𝑏𝑐, 𝑐𝑎, 𝑐𝑏, 𝑐𝑐, … }
• The language 𝐿 of strings of length 2, defined over Σ = {0,1,2}, can be written as
• 𝐿 = {00, 01, 02,10, 11,12,20,21,22}
• The language 𝐿 of strings ending in 0, defined over Σ = {0,1}, can be written as
• 𝐿 = {0,00,10,000,010,100,110, … }
 DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE: EXERCISE

• The language EQUAL, of strings with number of 𝑎’s equal to number of 𝑏’s, defined over Σ =
{𝑎, 𝑏} ?

• The language EVEN-EVEN, of strings with even number of 𝑎’s and even number of 𝑏’s, defined
over Σ = {𝑎, 𝑏} ?

• The language INTEGER, of strings defined over Σ = {−, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} ?

• The language EVEN, of stings defined over Σ = {−, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} ?

• The language {𝑎𝑛𝑏𝑛 ∶ 𝑛 = 1,2,3, … }, of strings defined over Σ = {𝑎, 𝑏} ?

• The language {𝑎𝑛𝑏𝑛𝑎𝑛 ∶ 𝑛 = 1,2,3, … }, of strings defined over Σ = {𝑎, 𝑏} ?

 DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE: EXERCISE

• The language FACTORIAL, of strings defined over Σ = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} ?

• The language FACTORIAL, of strings defined over Σ = {𝑎}, as {𝑎𝑛! : 𝑛 = 1,2,3, … } ?

• The language DOUBLE FACTORIAL, of strings defined over Σ = {𝑎, 𝑏}, as {𝑎𝑛! 𝑏𝑛! : 𝑛 =
1,2,3, … } ?
2
• The language SQUARE, of strings defined over Σ = {𝑎}, as {𝑎𝑛 ∶ 𝑛 = 1,2,3, … } ?

• The language PRIME, of strings defined over Σ = {𝑎}, as { 𝑎𝑝 ∶ 𝑝 𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒} ?

 OPERATIONS ON LANGUAGES

• Union
𝐿 ∪ 𝑀 = {𝑤 | 𝑤 ∈ 𝐿 𝑜𝑟 𝑤 ∈ 𝑀}

• Concatenation
𝐿. 𝑀 = 𝐿𝑀 = {𝑤 | 𝑤 = 𝑥𝑦, 𝑥 ∈ 𝐿, 𝑦 ∈ 𝑀}

• Powers
𝐿0 = {𝜀}
𝐿𝑘 = 𝐿. 𝐿𝑘−1 , 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑘 ≥ 1

• Kleene Closure
∞

𝐿∗ = ራ 𝐿𝑖
𝑖=0
 APPLICATIONS OF LANGUAGES

1. Pattern Matching on the Web

• Problem: Given a search string w and a Web document d, do they match? In other words, should a
search engine, on input w, consider returning d?
• The language to be decided: {<w, d> : d is a candidate match for the query w}.
2. Question-Answering on the Web
• Problem: Given an English question q and a Web document d (which may be in English or Chinese),
does d contain the answer to q?
• The language to be decided: {<q, d> : d contains the answer to q}.
 RECAP

• Introduction to automata
• Applications of automata theory
• Formal and In-formal languages
• Alphabets, strings, null string, words, length of a string, reverse of a string,
• Defining languages
• Operations on languages
• Descriptive definition of languages
• EQUAL, EVEN-EVEN, INTEGER, EVEN, {𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑛}, {𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑛 𝑎𝑛 }, FACTORIAL, DOUBLEFACTORIAL,
SQUARE, DOUBLESQUARE, PRIME.