Regular Expressions in a CS Formal Languages Course

Autor:	Morazán, Marco T.
Rok vydání:	2023
Předmět:	Computer Science - Programming Languages Computer Science - Formal Languages and Automata Theory
Zdroj:	EPTCS 382, 2023, pp. 45-63
Druh dokumentu:	Working Paper
DOI:	10.4204/EPTCS.382.3
Popis:	Regular expressions in an Automata Theory and Formal Languages course are mostly treated as a theoretical topic. That is, to some degree their mathematical properties and their role to describe languages is discussed. This approach fails to capture the interest of most Computer Science students. It is a missed opportunity to engage Computer Science students that are far more motivated by practical applications of theory. To this end, regular expressions may be discussed as the description of an algorithm to generate words in a language that is easily programmed. This article describes a programming-based methodology to introduce students to regular expressions in an Automata Theory and Formal Languages course. The language of instruction is FSM in which there is a regular expression type. Thus, facilitating the study of regular expressions and of algorithms based on regular expressions. Comment: In Proceedings TFPIE 2023, arXiv:2308.06110
Databáze:	arXiv
Externí odkaz:	http://arxiv.org/abs/2308.06969 Zobrazit plný text záznamu View this record from Arxiv