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Handout 11 CFG

- Context free grammars (CFGs) are used to define the syntax of languages by specifying rules for rewriting nonterminal symbols. - A CFG consists of nonterminal symbols, terminal symbols from an alphabet, and productions that replace nonterminals with terminals and/or nonterminals. - Strings generated by applying productions are called derivations; their parse trees represent the production steps. - The language defined by a CFG is the set of all strings that can be derived from the start symbol. Ambiguous CFGs allow multiple parse trees for some strings.

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TALHA SALEEM
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34 views

Handout 11 CFG

- Context free grammars (CFGs) are used to define the syntax of languages by specifying rules for rewriting nonterminal symbols. - A CFG consists of nonterminal symbols, terminal symbols from an alphabet, and productions that replace nonterminals with terminals and/or nonterminals. - Strings generated by applying productions are called derivations; their parse trees represent the production steps. - The language defined by a CFG is the set of all strings that can be derived from the start symbol. Ambiguous CFGs allow multiple parse trees for some strings.

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TALHA SALEEM
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Context Free Grammars

Context Free Grammars


• By definition a context-free grammar is a finite set of
variables (also called non-terminals) each of which
represents a language.
• The languages represented by the variables are
described recursively in terms of each other and
primitive symbols called terminals.
• The rules relating the variables are called productions.
Context Free Grammars
• Example
– S → aS
– S→Λ
– Continuous strings of as
• Strings with at least one double letter
– S → ADA
– A → aA
– A → bA
– A→Λ
– D → aa
– D → bb
Context Free Grammars
• A context-free grammar, is a collection of three things
– An alphabet  of letters called terminals from which strings of
language are generated
– A set of symbols called nonterminals, one of which is a symbol S,
termed as the start symbol
– A finite set of productions (production rules) of the form
• One nonterminal Finite string of Terminals and / or Nonterminals

• The strings of terminals and nonterminals can consist of only


terminals or of only nonterminals, or of any mixture of terminals
and nonterminals or even the empty string
• A CFG must has at least one production that has the nonterminal
S at its left side
Context Free Grammars
• Nonterminal / Variables / Syntactic category
– A symbol that can be substituted by some other
symbol(s)
– Variable because the same non-terminal can have
multiple substitutions
• Terminal
– A symbol that cannot be substituted further
– Letters from the alphabet set
Context Free Grammars
• Conventions for CFG
– Nonterminals are written in upper case letters

– Terminals Symbols are written in lower case

• Terminal symbols are also called atomic


symbols
Context Free Grammars
• Terminologies
– Generation or Derivation
• The sequence of applications of the rules that
produces the finished string of terminals from
the starting symbol is called a generation or a
derivation of the word
– Production
• The grammatical rules are called productions
Context Free Languages
• The language generated by a CFG is the set of all
strings of terminals that can be produced from the
start symbol S using the productions as
substitutions.

• A language generated by a CFG is called a Context


Free Language (CFL)
Context Free Grammars
• Non terminals vs. terminals
–S→X
–S→Y
–X→Λ
– Y → aY
– Y → bY
–Y→a
–Y→b
Context Free Grammars
• S → XaaX
• X → aX
• X → bX
• X→Λ
• (a+b)* aa (a+b)*
CFG
• Examples
– All strings that contain the substring
“bbb”
– All strings that start and end with
different letters
– All strings that don’t end at ba
CFG
• Which languages do these CFGs
define
– S → abS
– S → ab

– S → aS
– S → bb
Context Free Grammars
• CFG For L = {anbn n 0 1 2 3 4 …}
– S → aSb
– S→Λ
– S → ab
• CFG For EQUAL
– S → aB
– S → bA
– A→a
– A → aS
– A → bAA
– B→b
– B → bS
– B → aBB
Context Free Grammars
• CFG For EQUAL
– S → aB
– S → bA
– A→a
– A → aS
– A → bAA
– B→b
– B → bS
– B → aBB
• Can be compactly written as
S → aB | bA <S> ::= a<B> | b<A>
A → a | aS | bAA <A >::= a | a<S> | b<A><A>
B → b | bS | Abb <B> ::= b | b<S> | <A>bb
Context Free Grammars
• CFG For identifier
– IDENTIFIER → ALPHA /ALPHANUMERIC

– ALPHA → A|B|….|Z|a|b|c….|z

– ALPHANUMERIC → ALPHA ALPHANUMERIC |

NUMERIC ALPHANUMERIC | Λ

– NUMERIC → 0|1|2…|9
Context Free Grammars
• CFG For arithmetic expressions
– <expression>  <expression> + <expression>
– <expression>  <expression> * <expression>
– <expression>  <expression> - <expression>
– <expression>  <expression> + <expression>
– <expression>  (<expression>)
– <expression>  <number>
Context Free Grammars
• Derivation or Generation
• S → abS | Λ
• S  abS
  ababS
  abababS
  ababab
  abab
Parse Trees
• A tree format used for the derivation of a string from
the CFG
• Parse tree, Syntax tree, Generation tree, Production
tree, Derivation tree
• Start symbol of the CFG at root
• Non terminals are represented as nodes
• Terminals as leaves
• Every next level of tree is a derivation from a
production of CFG
• The yield of a parse tree is a terminal string held at all
the leaves
Parse Trees
• Examples
– S → abS | Λ
– Derivation of abababab

a b S

a b S

a b S

a b Λ
Derivation
• Left Most Derivation
– If a word w is generated by a CFG by a certain derivation and
at each step in the derivation a rule of production is applied to
the leftmost nonterminal in the working string then this
derivation is called a leftmost derivation
• Right Most Derivation
– If a word w is generated by a CFG by a certain derivation and
at each step in the derivation a rule of production is applied to
the rightmost nonterminal in the working string then this
derivation is called a rightmost derivation
Ambiguity
• A CFG is called ambiguous if for at least one
word in the language that it generated, there
are two possible derivations of the word that
corresponds to different syntax trees.

• A CFG which is not ambiguous is called


unambiguous CFG
Ambiguous Grammars
• S → aS |Sa |a
• Derivation of aaa

S S S S

a a
S S S a S a

a S S a a S S a

a a a a

• S → aS | a

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