Regular Expressions & FSAs

• Any regular expression can be realized as

a finite state automaton (FSA)
• There are two kinds of FSAs
– Deterministic (DFSAs)
– Non-deterministic (NFSAs)
• Any NFSA can be converted into a corresponding DFSA.
• A FSA (a regular expression) represents a regular language.

Regular Expressions

Finite Automata Regular Languages

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 A DFSA and A NFSA

a b
a a,b
0 1 0 1

b b

A NFSA: a*(a|b)b*
A DFSA : a | b+

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 Formal Definition of Finite-State Automata
• FSA is Q x  x q0 x F x 

• Q: a finite set of N states q0, q1, … qN

• : a finite input alphabet of symbols
• q0: the start state
• F: the set of final states -- F is a subset of Q
• (q,i): transition function
– DFSA : There is exactly one arc leaving a state q with a symbol a.
There is no arc with the empty string.
– NFSA : There can be more than one arc leaving a state q with a symbol a.
There can be arcs with empty string.

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 Transition Tables for FSAs
a b a b €
1 2 3 1 1,2 2 *
2 * * 2 * 2 *

3 * 3

A NFSA
A DFSA

• We can use transition tables to show FSAs.

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 Implementation of FSAs
• To implement DFSA is simpler.
• To implement NFSAs, we need a search algorithm.
– Depth-first – be careful about infinite loops
– Breadth-first
Search Space
a b
1,aaab
a,b
1 2
2,aab 1,aab
fail
2,ab 1,ab
Tape: aaab fai
l 2,b 1,b

2,- 2,-
success success
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 Regular Languages

• Operations on regular languages and FSAs:

– concatenation, closure, union
• Properties of regular languages
– closed under concatenation, union, disjunction, intersection, difference,
complementation, reversal, closure.
• Equivalent to finite-state automata.

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