COMS W4115
Programming Languages and Translators
Lecture 9: Parsing Context-Free Grammars
February 19, 2014

Outline

1. Proving a language is not context free
2. Closure and decidability results for context-free languages
3. The parsing problem for context-free grammars
4. Top-down parsing
5. Transformations on grammars

1. Proving a Language is Not Context Free

• In Lecture 6, Section 5, we stated the pumping lemma for regular languages. This lemma can be used to prove certain languages are not regular.
• There is an analogous result for context-free languages, called the pumping lemma for context-free languages, that can be used to show certain languages are not context free.
• The pumping lemma for context-free languages: If L is a context-free language, then there exists a constant n such that if z is any string in L of length n or more, then z can be written as uvwxy subject to the following conditions:
1. The length of vwx is less than or equal to n.
2. The length of vx is one or more. (That is, not both of v and x can be empty.)
3. For all i ≥ 0, uvⁱwxⁱy is in L.
• A typical proof using the pumping lemma to show a language L is not context free proceeds by assuming L is context free, and then finding a long string in L which, when pumped, yields a string not in L, thereby deriving a contradiction.
• Examples of non-context-free languages:
• {anbncn | n ≥ 0 }
• {ww | w is in (a|b)* }
• {ambnambn | n ≥ 0 }

2. Closure and Decidability Results for Context-Free Languages

• The context-free languages are closed under the following operations:
• union
• reversal
• Kleene star
• homomorphism
• inverse homomorphism
• Unlike the regular languages, the context-free languages are not closed under intersection or complement.
• Decidability results
• Given a CFG G and a string w, it is decidable whether w is in L(G).
• Given a CFG G, it is decidable whether L(G) is empty.
• Given a CFG G, it is undecidable whether G is ambiguous.
• Given two CFGs G₁ and G₂, it is undecidable whether L(G₁) = L(G₂).

3. The Parsing Problem for Context-Free Grammars

• The parsing problem for context-free grammars is given a CFG G and an input string w to construct all parse trees for w according to G, if w is in L(G).
• The Cocke-Younger-Kasami algorithm is a dynamic programming algorithm that given a Chomsky Normal Form grammar G and an input string w will create in O(|w|³) time a table from which all parse trees for w according to G can be constructed.
• For compiler applications two styles of parsing algorithms are common: top-down parsing and bottom-up parsing.

4. Top-Down Parsing

• Top-down parsing consists of trying to construct a parse tree for an input string starting from the root and creating the nodes of the parse tree in preorder.
• Equivalently, top-down parsing consists of trying to find a leftmost derivation for the input string.
• Consider grammar G:

      S → + S S | * S S | a
    

• Leftmost derivation for + a * a a:

      S ⇒ + S S
        ⇒ + a S
        ⇒ + a * S S
        ⇒ + a * a S
        ⇒ + a * a a
  

• Recursive-descent parsing
• Recursive-descent parsing is a top-down method of syntax analysis in which a set of recursive procedures is used to process the input string.
• One procedure is associated with each nonterminal of the grammar. See Fig. 4.13, p. 219.
• The sequence of successful procedure calls defines the parse tree.
• Nonrecursive predictive parsing
• A nonrecursive predictive parser uses an explicit stack.
• See Fig. 4.19, p. 227, for a model of table-driven predictive parser.
• Parsing table for G:

                        Input Symbol
   Nonterminal    a        +          *        $

       S        S → a    S → +SS    S → *SS
   

• Moves made by this predictive parser on input +a*aa. (The top of the stack is to the left.)

       Stack        Input   Output
        S$         +a*aa$
        +SS$       +a*aa$   S → +SS
        SS$         a*aa$
        aS$         a*aa$   S → a
        S$           *aa$
        *SS$         *aa$   S → *SS
        SS$           aa$
        aS$           aa$   S → a
        S$             a$
        a$             a$   S → a
        $               $        
   

• Note that these moves trace out a leftmost derivation for the input.

5. Transformations on Grammars

• Two common language-preserving transformations are often applied to grammars to try to make them parsable by top-down methods. These are eliminating left recursion and left factoring.
• Eliminating left recursion:
• Replace

      expr →  expr + term
           |  term
   

by

      expr  →  term expr'

      expr' →  + term expr'
            |  ε
   

• Left factoring:
• Replace

      stmt → if ( expr ) stmt else stmt
           | if (expr) stmt
           | other
   

by

      stmt  → if ( expr ) stmt stmt'
            | other

      stmt' → else stmt
            | ε
   

6. Practice Problems

1. Write down a CFG for regular expressions over the alphabet {a, b}. Show a parse tree for the regular expression a | b*a.
2. Using the nonterminals stmt and expr, design context-free grammar productions to model
1. C while-statements
2. C for-statements
3. C do-while statements
3. Consider grammar G:

      S →  S S + | S S * | a
    

1. What language does this grammar generate?
2. Eliminate the left recursion from this grammar.
4. Use the pumping lemma to show that {anbncn | n ≥ 0 } is not context free.

7. Reading

• ALSU, Sections 4.3, 4.4