# Submissions

In this course, we are using gsubmit to submit homework. You can find documentations about gsubmit here. And please strictly follow the instructions on that page to submit your homework, or otherwise your homework will not be graded at all.

Some important thing to know (extracted from the documentation):

• Before submission, make sure all the files are under a single folder named hwXX, or otherwise we can’t see it in the right place. e.g. hw01, hw02, …
• Submit that folder as a whole into the right course. e.g. gsubmit cs320 hw01
• If you forget how to use gsubmit, try gsubmit --help for help.

### Quick Usage Example

Suppose I have three files to submit: hello.h, hello.c, and main.c.

{.sourceCode .bash} ssh username@csa2.bu.edu #login to csa2.bu.edu using your BU CS login name mkdir hw01 #create a folder using a correct name for this homework cp hello.h hello.c main.c hw01 #copy everything into this folder gsubmit cs320 hw01 #submit gsubmit cs320 -ls #double check that everything is submitted

## Background

1. We use programming languages to write programs.
2. We use grammars to describe programming languages.
3. We use notations to describe grammars.
4. We implement grammars as automata.
5. We use automata to recognize programming languages.

### Formal Language

1. It has an alphabet, which is a finite set of symbols, and is usually denoted as $\Sigma$.
2. String is a finite sequence of symbols from the alphabet, including empty string $\epsilon$.
3. A formal language is a set of strings defined over an alphabet, including the empty set $\emptyset$.

### Formal Grammar

Formal grammar is a set of production rules which generate all the strings of a corresponding formal language.

### Types of Grammars

Different grammars have different abilities of describing languages. According to Chomsky [wikich]_, there are four types of grammars in descending order w.r.t. their abilities.

Type 0

Unrestricted grammars. This type of grammars generate recursively enumerable languages.

Type 1

Context-sensitive grammars. These grammars generate context-sensitive languages.

Type 2

Context-free grammars. These grammars generate context-free languages.

Type 3

Regular grammars. These grammars generate regular languages.

note

Note that actually, people can add restrictions onto these four types of grammars, and use those subset grammars to generate subset languages. For example, there are some important subsets of context-free grammars, like LL(k) and LR(k) grammars. You don’t need to learn it for now. Just get some sense of those terminologies and their relationship.

## BNF: Backus Naur Form

BNF stands for Backus Naur Form (Backus Normal Form is not suggested [bnf]_), which is a notation technique to describe context-free grammars [wikibnf]_ [wikicfg]_.

As mentioned, those grammars correspond to different type of languages, and they use different notations to describe themselves. BNF is one of the notations that can describe context-free grammars.

### BNF in Action

This can be explained line by line in English as follows:

• A number consists of a digit, or alternatively, a digit followed by a number recursively.
• And a digit consists of any single digit from 0 to 9.

This may not be a perfect definition for numbers, but you can get a sense.

### BNF Syntax

• Each group containing a ::= is a rule, where the LHS will be further expanded into RHS.
• Those names on the LHS of ::= are rule names.

In the above example, there are two rules, number and digit.

• The vertical bar | can be read as “or alternatively” as used in the above explanation. It seperates different expansion alternatives of a single rule.
• Those names that only appear in the RHS are terminals. And those names appear on LHS, or on both sides, are non-terminals.

digit, number are non-terminals, while 0 .. 9 are terminals.

### Variations

Different versions of BNF exists, and one of those core problems is to differ terminals from non-terminals. Someone may be familiar with this:

<number> ::= <digit> | <digit> <number>
<digit>  ::= '0' | '1' | '2' | '3' | '4' | '5' | '6' | '7' | '8' | '9'

where terminals are in '', and non-terminals are in <>. Other syntaxs exist, but they are pretty much similar.

### Extensions

BNF has some extentions, and they are generally for the sake of simplicity and succinctness. Please google EBNF and ABNF for ideas.

Here I want to present some commonly used notions.

• + means repeating one or more times. e.g. number ::= digit+
• * means repeating zero or more times. e.g. number ::= digit digit*
• [] means repeating zero or one time, namely an optional part. e.g. function_call ::= function_name '(' [params] ')'
• {} means repeating zero or more times, just as *. e.g. id ::= letter {letter | digit}
• () means a group. e.g. id ::= letter (letter | digit)*

warning

The same symbols may have different meanings in different context. Here we are using them in the scope of formal language theory. Later you will use them in Python and Haskell, where they have different meanings.

## Regular Language and Regular Expression

Regular language is a formal language, regular expression (in formal language theory) is a way to describe regular grammar.

### Regular Language

Recall that a language is essentially a set of strings.

• The empty set is a regular language.
• Every symbol of $\Sigma \cup {\epsilon}$ is a regular language.
• If $L_1, L_2$ are regular languages, then

• $L_1 \cdot L_2 = {xy \mid x \in L_1, y \in L_2}$ is a regular language. It is formed by concatenate strings in both languages. Sometimes it is written as $L_1L_2$.
• $L_1 \cup L_2$ is a regular language. It is simply the union of both languages.
• $L^$ is a regular language. This is called the Kleene-Star, or Kleene closure. It is formed by concatenating any strings in $L$ any times (including zero times). *e.g. ${a,b}^* = {\epsilon, a, b, ab, aa, bb, abb, aab, aaa, baa, bba, bbb, …}$.
• And there is no other regular languages.

Examples

Assume $\Sigma={a, b}$. ${\epsilon},\emptyset, {a}, {a, a}, {abaab, babba}$ are regular languages. ${a^nb^n\mid n \in \mathbb{N}}$ is not.

### Regular Expression

• $\epsilon$ and $\emptyset$ are regular expressions denoting ${\epsilon}$ and $\emptyset$ regular languages respectively.
• Every symbol in $\Sigma$ is a regular expression denoting the regular language containing only that symbol.
• If $r,s$ are regular expressions, then $(r),\quad rs,\quad r \mid s,\quad r^*$ are regular expressions. Sometimes, people write $r\cdot s$ for $rs$, and $r+s$ for $r\mid s$.
• No other expressions are regular expressions.

Examples

 $ba^*, a(a b)^*, (a b)^*(aa bb)(a b)^*$

There is another symbol, the Kleene plus as appeared in $(ab)^+$, which means repeating one or more times. In this case, it is the set ${ab, abab, ababab, \cdots}$.

As mentioned, regular expression is only a way of describing regular grammar. And grammar is actually a set of production rules. So we can actually rewrite regular expressions into production rules. And we can borrow BNF notation for these production rules.

Say we have a regular expression 00[0-9]* (this is a coder’s way of regexp, a math people would write $00(0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9)^$ *instead), it can be written as

note

Don’t worry, please just get a sense of them. As the lectures going on, you will know them better and better. But at this time, try your best to classify these terminologies, and find out their relationships on your own. Everything you need should be handy, either on this page, on the course page, or Google.