KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA

Ministry of Higher Education

Northern Borders University
College of Science and Arts
Department of Computer Sciences and Information
Technology

Theory of Computation

instructor :Ammar Mohammed Ali

Finite Automata
Introduction
 Informally, a state diagram that comprehensively captures
all possible states and transitions that a machine can take
while responding to a stream or sequence of input symbols .

 Finite automata are finite collections of states with

transition rules that take you from one state to another.

 Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA)

 The machine can exist in only one state at any given time
 Non -deterministic Finite Automata (NFA)
 The machine can exist in multiple states at the same time
Representation of Finite Automata
Finite Automata can be represented visually by state
diagrams:
q a
0 F
 Nodes = states.
 Arcs represent transition function.
 Arc from state p to state q labeled by all those input symbols
that have transitions from p to q.
 Arrow labeled “Start” to the start state.
 Final states indicated by double circles.
Deterministic Finite Automata
 A finite automaton is a 5-tuple M = (Q, Σ, δ, q, F), where
1. A finite set of states (Q, typically).
2. An input alphabet (Σ, typically).
3. A transition function (δ, typically).
4. A start state (q0, in Q, typically).
5. A set of final states (F ⊆ Q, typically).
 “Final” and “accepting” are synonyms.

 Transition Function takes two arguments: a state and an

input symbol δ(q, a) , the state that the DFA goes to when
it is in state q and input a is received.

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What does a DFA do?
 Input: a word w in ∑*
 Question: Is w acceptable by the DFA?
 Steps:
 Start at the “start state” q0
 For every input symbol in the sequence w do
 Compute the next state from the current state, given the current input
symbol in w and the transition function
 If after all symbols in w are consumed, the current state is
one of the accepting states (F) then accept w;
 Otherwise, reject w.

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 q0 0,1

L(M) = {0,1}*
 0 0

1
q0 q1
1

L(M) = { w | w has an even number of 1s}

Build an automaton that accepts all and only
those strings that contain 001

0,1
1 0

0 0 1
q q0 q00 q001
1
:Example

a a a/b/c

c c
q0 q1 q2

b b

a c c c b accepted

a a c rejected

Accepts those strings that contain at least two c’s

DFA for strings containing 01

• Q = {q0,q1,q2}
• ∑ = {0,1}
• start state = q0
1 0 0,1
• F = {q2}
start 0 1
q0 q1 q2 • Transition table
symbols
0 1
Accepting
q0 q1 q0
state
states q1 q1 q2
*q2 q2 q2

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State Diagram and Table a
a
b
b
q0 q1 q2

a
b
d a b
q0 q0 q1

q1 q0 q2

q2 q2 q2
:Example
 Let M be the following DFA.

(i) Write down four string accepted by M.

(ii) Write down four strings not accepted by M

Example: Graph of a DFA
 Draw state diagram for DFA that Accepts all strings
without two consecutive 1’s

0 0,1
1 1
A B C

Start 0

 Represent the DFA by transition table

Example: Graph of a DFA
 Draw state diagram for DFA to Accepts the language:
L = {w|w has both an even number of 0’s and even number of 1’s}
1

Start
q0 q1

0 0 0 0

q2 q3

 Represent the DFA by transition table

Example: Graph of a DFA
 Write regular expressions for the languages over the
alphabet Σ = {a, b}, that All strings which do not contain
the substring ba

 Draw DFAs for the language:

 Represent the DFA by transition table

Example: Graph of a DFA
 Draw DFAs accepting the set of all strings ending with 00.

 Represent the DFA by transition table

Example: Graph of a DFA
 Draw a DFA which accepts the following language:
L = {w | w ∈ Σ∗ w contains the substring 0101}
(That is, w = x0101y for two arbitrary strings x and y.)

 Represent the DFA by transition table

Example: Graph of a DFA
 Which languages are accepted by the following automaton

The strings with an even number of characters and length of

at least 2.
Example: Graph of a DFA
 Which languages are accepted by the following automaton

The strings which contains at least one a, followed by an

odd number of characters.
Extended transition function

 It describe what happen when start at any state and follow

˄
any sequence of input. denoted by δ

 Is a function that takes state q and a string w and return

the state p
˄
 Basis: δ(q, ε) = q
 ˄
Induction: δ(q,wa) = δ(δ(q,w),a) = δ(p, a)

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Extended transition function
 For example: given the transition table below

˄
 Compute the δ(q, w) , w = 110101

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Extended transition function