An Introduction to Formal Languages & Automata provides an excellent presentation of the material that is essential to an introductory theory of computation course. The text was designed to familiarize students with the foundations & principles of computer science & to strengthen the students' ability to carry out formal & rigorous mathematical argument. Employing a problem-solving approach, the text provides students insight into the course material by stressing intuitive motivation & illustration of ideas through straightforward explanations & solid mathematical proofs. By emphasizing learning through problem solving, students learn the material primarily through problem-type illustrative examples that show the motivation behind the concepts, as well as their connection to the theorems & definitions.

The book is a concise, self-contained and fully updated introduction to automata theory – a fundamental topic of computer sciences and engineering. The material is presented in a rigorous yet convincing way and is supplied with a wealth of examples, exercises and down-to-the earth convincing explanatory notes. An ideal text to a spectrum of one-term courses in computer sciences, both at the senior undergraduate and graduate students.

The book contains an in-depth coverage of all the topics related to the theory of computation as mentioned in the syllabuses of B.E., M.C.A. and M.Sc. (Computer Science) of various universities. Sufficient amount of theoretical inputs supported by a number of illustrations are included for those who take deep interest in the subject. In the first few chapters, the book presents the necessary basic material for the study of automata theories. Examples of topics included are: regular languages and Kleene's Theorem; minimal automata and syntactic monoids; the relationship between context-free languages and pushdown automata; and Turing machines and decidability. This book facilitates students a more informal writing style while providing the most accessible coverage of automata theory, solid treatment on constructing proofs, many figures and diagrams to help convey ideas, and sidebars to highlight related material. Each chapter offers an abundance of exercises for hands-on learning.

Introduction to Formal Languages, Automata Theory and Computation presents the theoretical concepts in a concise and clear manner, with an in-depth coverage of formal grammar and basic automata types. The book also examines the underlying theory and principles of computation and is highly suitable to the undergraduate courses in computer science and information technology. An overview of the recent trends in the field and applications are introduced at the appropriate places to stimulate the interest of active learners.

Formal languages and automata theory is the study of abstract machines and how these can be used for solving problems. The book has a simple and exhaustive approach to topics like automata theory, formal languages and theory of computation. These descriptions are followed by numerous relevant examples related to the topic. A brief introductory chapter on compilers explaining its relation to theory of computation is also given.

The study of formal languages and of related families of automata has long been at the core of theoretical computer science. Until recently, the main reasons for this centrality were connected with the specification and analy sis of programming languages, which led naturally to the following ques tions. How might a grammar be written for such a language? How could we check whether a text were or were not a well-formed program generated by that grammar? How could we parse a program to provide the structural analysis needed by a compiler? How could we check for ambiguity to en sure that a program has a unique analysis to be passed to the computer? This focus on programming languages has now been broadened by the in creasing concern of computer scientists with designing interfaces which allow humans to communicate with computers in a natural language, at least concerning problems in some well-delimited domain of discourse. The necessary work in computational linguistics draws on studies both within linguistics (the analysis of human languages) and within artificial intelligence. The present volume is the first textbook to combine the topics of formal language theory traditionally taught in the context of program ming languages with an introduction to issues in computational linguistics. It is one of a series, The AKM Series in Theoretical Computer Science, designed to make key mathematical developments in computer science readily accessible to undergraduate and beginning graduate students.

A textbook for a graduate course on formal languages and automata theory, building on prior knowledge of theoretical computer models.