Lab

Key insights:

• more languages than regular expressions
• we do not know how to write regular expressions for some languages (as a direct consequence of the above)
• reg.exps. are unambiguous and FINITE language representations

Objectives:

• Understand what is a language and a regular expression is, and the relation between them;
• Write several regular expressions for designated languages
• Identify languages described by some regular expressions (e.g. ?!)

Resources (tentative):

• http://www.idt.mdh.se/kurser/cd5560/10_01/examination/KOMPENDIER/Regular/kompendium_eng.pdf

I. What is the regular expression for the following languages:

• $ \Sigma=\{0, 1\}$ , $ L=\{011\}$

Solution: $ E=011$
Obs: By definition the correct expression is $ E=((01)1)$ , but we won't write them when not needed and we use a precedence rule to reduce the number of parantheses in regular expressions as much as possible (Kleene Star > Concatenation > Union).

• $ \Sigma=\{a, b\}$ , $ L=\{a, b\}$

Solution: $ E=a \cup b$
Obs: By definition the correct expression is $ E=(a \cup b)$ , but we can remove parentheses for the same reason as above.

• $ \Sigma=\{0, 1\}$ , $ L=\{e, 0, 1, 00, 01, 10, 11, 000, \ldots\}$

Solution: $ E=(0 \cup 1)^{*}$

• $ \Sigma=\{0, 1\}$ , $ L=\{010010101000010, 010010101000011\}$

Solution: $ E=01001010100001(0 \cup 1)$

• $ \Sigma=\{0, 1\}$ , $ L=\{w \in \Sigma^{*} \mid w \text{ ends with } 0\}$
  

Solution: $ E=(0 \cup 1)^{*}0$

• $ \Sigma=\{0, 1\}$ , $ L=\{w \in \Sigma^{*} \mid w=w_101 \lor w=1w_1, w_1 \in \Sigma^{*}\}$
  

Solution: $ E=(0 \cup 1)^{*}01 \cup 1(0 \cup 1)$

• $ \Sigma=\{x, y\}$ , $ L=\{w \in \Sigma^{*} \mid \#_x(w) = 2\}$
  

Solution: $ E=y^{*}xy^{*}xy^{*}$
Obs: $ \#_x(w)$ denotes number of $ x$ in $ w$ .

• $ \Sigma=\{a, b\}$ , $ L=\{w \in \Sigma^{*} \mid \#_a(w) \,\vdots\, 2\}$
  

Solution: $ E=(b^{*}ab^{*}ab^{*})^{*}$

• $ \Sigma=\{x, y\}$ , $ L=\{w \in \Sigma^{*} \mid \#_x(w) \ge 1\}$
  

Solution: $ E=(x \cup y)^{*}x(x \cup y)^{*}$

• $ \Sigma=\{a, b, c\}$ , $ L=\{w \in \Sigma^{*} \mid \#_a(w) \ge 1 \land \#_c(w) \ge 1\}$
  

Solution: $ E=((a \cup b \cup c)^{*}a(a \cup b \cup c)^{*}b(a \cup b \cup c)^{*}) \cup ((a \cup b \cup c)^{*}b(a \cup b \cup c)^{*}a(a \cup b \cup c)^{*})$

• $ \Sigma=\{a, b\}$ , $ L=\{w \in \Sigma^{*} \mid w \text{ does not contain } ba\}$
  

Solution: $ E=a^{*}b^{*}$

• $ \Sigma=\{a, b\}$ , $ L=\{w \in \Sigma^{*} \mid \#_a(w) + \#_b(w) = 0\}$
  

Solution: $ E=\epsilon$

• $ \Sigma=\{a, b\}$ , $ L=\{w \in \Sigma^{*} \mid \#_a(w) + \#_b(w) < 0\}$
  

Solution: $ E=\emptyset$

A complete, platform-dependent set of installation instructions can be found here. In a nutshell, JFlex comes as a binary app jflex.

Consider the following simple JFlex file:

import java.util.*;
 
%%
 
%class HelloLexer
%standalone
 
%{
  public Integer words = 0;
%}
 
LineTerminator = \r|\n|\r\n
 
%%   
 
[a-zA-Z]+ { words+=1; }
{LineTerminator} { /* do nothing*/ }

Suppose the above file is called Hello.flex. Running the command jflex Hello.flex will generate a Java class which implements a lexer.

Each JFlex file (such as the above), contains 5 sections:

• the first section, which ends at the first occurrence of '' contains declarations which will be added at the beginning of the Java class file. * the second section, right after '' and until %{ contains a sequence of options for jflex. Here, we use two options:
  • class HelloLexer tells jflex that the output java class that the lexer classname should be HelloLexer
  • standalone tells jflex to print the unmatched input word at to standard output and continue scanning.
  • More details regarding possible options can be found in the JFlex docs.
• the third section, separated by %{ and %} contains declarations which will be appended in the Lexer class file. Here we declare a public variable words.
• the fourth section contains regular expression declarations. Here, we have declared LineTerminator to be the regular expression \r | \n | \r\n. Declarations can be use to build more complicated RegExps from simple ones, and can be used as well in the fifth section of the flex file:
• the fifth section contains rules and actions: a rule specifies a regular expression to be scanned, as well as the appropriate action to be taken, when a word satisfying the regexp is found:
  • the rule [a-zA-Z]+ { words+=1; } states that whenever [a-zA-Z]+ (a regexp defined inline) is matched by a word, words+=1; should be executed;
  • the rule {LineTerminator} { } refers to the regexp defined above (note the brackets); here no action should be executed;
  • JFlex will always scan for the longest input word which satisfies a regexp. When a word satisfies more than one regexp the first one from the flex file will be matched.

After performing:

jflex Hello.flex

we obtain HelloLexer.java which contains the HelloLexer public class implementing our lexer. We can easily include this class in our project, e.g.: