Formal Languages with Applications

Catalog description

Regular, context free, recursive, and recursively enumerable languages; associated machine models; applications. CMPSC 469 Formal Languages with Applications (3) The primary goal of this course is to explore formal language theory, including regular, context free and recursively enumerable languages. Notations for specifying these languages (regular expressions, finite automata, context free grammars and turing machines) are emphasized. Applications of these languages, including pattern recognition, scanning, parsing, specification of programming language syntax and Unix shell programming, are also discussed. Study of these topics should provide a solid theoretical basis for students to draw on in studying diverse areas such as algorithm analysis, complexity theory and compiler construction.