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COS3701 Assignment 2 (COMPLETE ANSWERS) 2025

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COS3701
Assignment 2
(COMPLETE
ANSWERS) 2025
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100% TRUSTED WORKINGS, EXPLANATIONS
& SOLUTIONS

,COS3701 Assignment 2 (COMPLETE
ANSWERS) 2025
Question 1 10 Find CFGs for all words that do not have
the substring aba over the alphabet Σ = {a b}.
To construct a Context-Free Grammar (CFG) for all words over the alphabet Σ
= {a, b} that do not contain the substring "aba", we need to carefully design
rules that generate all such strings while preventing the forbidden pattern from
forming.


✅ Step-by-step approach:

We’ll define a CFG that:
 Generates all strings over {a, b}
 Avoids generating any string with "aba" as a substring


🎯 Key Idea
Keep track of the last few letters of the string being built, to avoid creating "aba".


📘 CFG Variables:

Let’s define the non-terminals as follows:
 S: Start symbol — generates all strings that avoid "aba"
 A: Last symbol was "a"
 AA: Last two symbols were "aa"
 B: Last symbol was "b"


🧩 Productions (CFG Rules)
We define the grammar as:
S → aA | bS | ε
A → aAA | bS (a followed by a = "aa" OR a followed by b is safe unless "ab" is

, followed by "a")
AA → aAA | bS (still safe until we get "aba")
Now let’s analyze the safety:
We must avoid the substring "aba".
So we disallow:
 From A, producing bA (i.e., forming "ab"), followed by a, which would
create "aba".
 Therefore, after "ab" we must not allow a.
So we’ll need to track when we just saw "ab" and prevent a next.


📘 Final CFG (safe version with tracking):

Let’s define new non-terminals:
 S: Start symbol.
 A: Previous symbol was a.
 AB: Previous two symbols were ab.
Now define productions:
S → aA | bS | ε
A → aA | bAB
AB → bS ; disallow `AB → a...` to avoid "aba"


✅ Explanation
 S → aA starts with a, moves to A
 A → bAB builds "ab" and moves to AB
 AB → bS continues only if next is b, so no AB → a..., avoiding "aba"
 All other transitions are safe and preserve valid strings.


🎓 Example strings generated:
 ε (empty string) ✅
 a✅

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