org.metasyntactic.math.automata
Interface FiniteAutomata

All Superinterfaces:

java.io.Serializable

All Known Subinterfaces:

RegularExpression

All Known Implementing Classes:

AbstractFiniteAutomata, AbstractRegularExpression, ContextFreeGrammar, LRParseTable, TuringMachine

public interface FiniteAutomata

extends java.io.Serializable

FORMAL DEFINITION OF A FINITE AUTOMATA

A finite automaton has several parts. It has a set of states and rules for going from one state to another, depending on the input symbol. It has an input alphabet that indicates the allowed input symbols. It has a start state and a set of accept states. The formal definition says that a finite automaton is a list of those five objects: set of states, input alphabet, rules for moving, start state, and accept states. In mathematical language a list of five elements is often called a 5-tuple. Hence we define a finite automaton to be a r-tuple consisting of these five parts.

Method Summary

boolean

accept(java.util.Iterator w)

Method Detail

accept

public boolean accept(java.util.Iterator w)
               throws ParseException

Parameters:

w - A string over some alphabet Σ

Returns:

true if this machine accepts w

Throws:

ParseException - if along the way of testing for acceptance, an exception occurred over the format of w