Pushdown automaton (PDA)

Pushdown automaton is an extension of an NFA One thing added to PDA is an input window, a read-only string in memory, where each character is read once, no backtracking is allowed. Another is a stack, read-write memory implemented as stack, with all its properties. Note that a non-deterministic PDA is stronger than a deterministic PDA (with no proof), which is why we define PDA to be non-deterministic.

PDA definition

Configuration definition

Configuration is a “snapshot” of the current state of PDA.

Step-relation definition

PDA language definition

Example

Example

Equivalence of CFG and PDA theorem

Closure under intersection lemma

Regular grammars

Regular grammars can be right or left.

A left regular grammar differs only in the position of relative to

Regular grammar and regular languages theorem