Related
As context, my textbook uses this style for EBNF:
Sebesta, Robert W. Concepts of Programming Languages 11th ed., Pearson, 2016, 150.
The problem:
Convert the following BNF rule with three RHSs to an EBNF rule with a single RHS.
Note: Conversion to EBNF should remove all explicit recursion and yield a single RHS EBNF rule.
A ⟶ B + A | B – A | B
My solution:
A ⟶ B [ (+ | –) A ]
My professor tells me:
"First, you should use { } instead of [ ],
Second, according to the BNF rule, <"term"> is B." (He is referring the the style guide posted above)
Is he correct? I assume so but have read other EBNF styles and wonder if I am entitled to credit.
You were clearly asked to remove explicit recursion and your proposed solution doesn't do that; A is still defined in terms of itself. So independent of naming issues, you failed to do the requested conversion and your prof is correct to mark you down for it. The correct solution for the problem as presented, ignoring the names of non-terminals, is A ⟶ B { (+ | –) B }, using indefinite repetition ({…}) instead of optionality ([…]). With this solution, the right-hand side of the production for A only references B, so there is no recursion (at least, in this particular production).
Now, for naming: clearly, your textbook's EBNF style is to use angle brackets around the non-terminal names. That's a common style, and many would say that it is more readable than using single capital letters which mean nothing to a human reader. Now, I suppose your prof thinks you should have changed the name of B to <term> on the basis that that is the "textbook" name for the non-terminal representing the operand of an additive operator. The original BNF you were asked to convert does show the two additive operators. However, it makes them right-associative, which is definitely non-standard. So you might be able to construct an argument that there's no reason to assume that these operators are additive and that their operands should be called "terms" [Note 1]. But even on that basis, you should have used some name written in lower-case letters and surrounded in angle brackets. To me, that's minor compared with the first issue, but your prof may have their own criteria.
In summary, I'm afraid I have to say that I don't believe you are entitled to credit for that solution.
Notes
If you had actually come up with that explanation, your prof might have been justified in suggesting a change of major to Law.
I've seen := used in several code samples, but never with an accompanying explanation. It's not exactly possible to google its use without knowing the proper name for it.
What does it do?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equals_sign#In_computer_programming
In computer programming languages, the equals sign typically denotes either a boolean operator to test equality of values (e.g. as in Pascal or Eiffel), which is consistent with the symbol's usage in mathematics, or an assignment operator (e.g. as in C-like languages). Languages making the former choice often use a colon-equals (:=) or ≔ to denote their assignment operator. Languages making the latter choice often use a double equals sign (==) to denote their boolean equality operator.
Note: I found this by searching for colon equals operator
It's the assignment operator in Pascal and is often used in proofs and pseudo-code. It's the same thing as = in C-dialect languages.
Historically, computer science papers used = for equality comparisons and ← for assignments. Pascal used := to stand in for the hard-to-type left arrow. C went a different direction and instead decided on the = and == operators.
In the statically typed language Go := is initialization and assignment in one step. It is done to allow for interpreted-like creation of variables in a compiled language.
// Creates and assigns
answer := 42
// Creates and assigns
var answer = 42
Another interpretation from outside the world of programming languages comes from Wolfram Mathworld, et al:
If A and B are equal by definition (i.e., A is defined as B), then this is written symbolically as A=B, A:=B, or sometimes A≜B.
■ http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Defined.html
■ https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/182101/appropriate-notation-equiv-versus
Some language uses := to act as the assignment operator.
In a lot of CS books, it's used as the assignment operator, to differentiate from the equality operator =. In a lot of high level languages, though, assignment is = and equality is ==.
This is old (pascal) syntax for the assignment operator. It would be used like so:
a := 45;
It may be in other languages as well, probably in a similar use.
A number of programming languages, most notably Pascal and Ada, use a colon immediately followed by an equals sign (:=) as the assignment operator, to distinguish it from a single equals which is an equality test (C instead used a single equals as assignment, and a double equals as the equality test).
Reference: Colon (punctuation).
In Python:
Named Expressions (NAME := expr) was introduced in Python 3.8. It allows for the assignment of variables within an expression that is currently being evaluated. The colon equals operator := is sometimes called the walrus operator because, well, it looks like a walrus emoticon.
For example:
if any((comment := line).startswith('#') for line in lines):
print(f"First comment: {comment}")
else:
print("There are no comments")
This would be invalid if you swapped the := for =. Note the additional parentheses surrounding the named expression. Another example:
# Compute partial sums in a list comprehension
total = 0
values = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
partial_sums = [total := total + v for v in values]
# [1, 3, 6, 10, 15]
print(f"Total: {total}") # Total: 15
Note that the variable total is not local to the comprehension (so too is comment from the first example). The NAME in a named expression cannot be a local variable within an expression, so, for example, [i := 0 for i, j in stuff] would be invalid, because i is local to the list comprehension.
I've taken examples from the PEP 572 document - it's a good read! I for one am looking forward to using Named Expressions, once my company upgrades from Python 3.6. Hope this was helpful!
Sources: Towards Data Science Article and PEP 572.
It's like an arrow without using a less-than symbol <= so like everybody already said "assignment" operator. Bringing clarity to what is being set to where as opposed to the logical operator of equivalence.
In Mathematics it is like equals but A := B means A is defined as B, a triple bar equals can be used to say it's similar and equal by definition but not always the same thing.
Anyway I point to these other references that were probably in the minds of those that invented it, but it's really just that plane equals and less that equals were taken (or potentially easily confused with =<) and something new to define assignment was needed and that made the most sense.
Historical References: I first saw this in SmallTalk the original Object Language, of which SJ of Apple only copied the Windows part of and BG of Microsoft watered down from them further (single threaded). Eventually SJ in NeXT took the second more important lesson from Xerox PARC in, which became Objective C.
Well anyway they just took colon-equals assiment operator from ALGOL 1958 which was later popularized by Pascal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assignment_(computer_science)
Assignments typically allow a variable to hold different values at
different times during its life-span and scope. However, some
languages (primarily strictly functional) do not allow that kind of
"destructive" reassignment, as it might imply changes of non-local
state.
The purpose is to enforce referential transparency, i.e. functions
that do not depend on the state of some variable(s), but produce the
same results for a given set of parametric inputs at any point in
time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referential_transparency
For VB.net,
a constructor (for this case, Me = this in Java):
Public ABC(int A, int B, int C){
Me.A = A;
Me.B = B;
Me.C = C;
}
when you create that object:
new ABC(C:=1, A:=2, B:=3)
Then, regardless of the order of the parameters, that ABC object has A=2, B=3, C=1
So, ya, very good practice for others to read your code effectively
Colon-equals was used in Algol and its descendants such as Pascal and Ada because it is as close as ASCII gets to a left-arrow symbol.
The strange convention of using equals for assignment and double-equals for comparison was started with the C language.
In Prolog, there is no distinction between assignment and the equality test.
Assuming having a list of sub-goals by applying tactic T:
______________________________________(1/10)
A
______________________________________(2/10)
A'
______________________________________(3/10)
A''
And assuming we know that Lemma L can be used to prove A and A'' but not A'.
My question is can we sequencing T with application result of L, which left me with just one sub-goal A'?
I tried T;apply L. without success, since sequencing seems require all branches/sub-goals proved.
I also tried controlled automation by using by T;apply L. from SSReflect, which suggested by this post. Unfortunately, Coq also get stuck, and report Ltac calls to ... last call failed.
You can use the try tactical, like this:
T; try by apply L.
This does the following. First, it applies T. Then, on each sub goal, it applies the tactic by apply L. If the tactic succeeds, good. Otherwise, if it fails, try does nothing.
I would recommend the T; try by apply L. from Arthur. But if you need more control, you can use
T; [ (* first goal *) now apply L
| (* second goal *) now apply L
| (* last goal *) idtac ].
Coq 8.6 also has goal selectors, so if T creates 4 subgoals you can write
T. 1-2,4: apply L.
to do apply L in all but the third subgoal.
As mentioned by Vilhelm, Coq 8.6 has goal selectors.
You can also do T; only 1,3: apply L. which has the advantage of numbering only the subgoals that were generated by the tactic T.
See https://coq.inria.fr/refman/proof-engine/ltac.html#goal-selectors
I'm a beginner in Prolog and I am dealing with a problem that might seem stupid to you, but I really can't understand what I'm doing wrong! Ok, I have this file fruits.pl and inside that I have something like this:
fruit(apple,small,sweet).
fruit(lemon,small,nosweet).
fruit(melon,big,sweet).
I have already (inside that file made a coexist(X,Y) atom that checks if two fruits can be put together in a plate. It works fine! But now I can't create a suggest(X) that takes as a parameter a fruit and returns a list of fruits that can be put together in the same plate.
The thing is I was trying to make something like that
suggest(X) :- findall(Y,fruit(Y,_,_), List), coexist(X,Y).
What do you think? Every time I try to run this in swi prolog there is a warning 'singleton variable' and when I press
suggest(apple).
then it says false..
sorry for my english :/
Predicates in Prolog do not return anything. You have goals that are satisfied or not and you can interpret that as returning true or false.
Your predicate suggest(X) should contain another parameter that will be bound to the list of fruits that go together with X. An option would be: suggest(X, List) which describes the following relation: List represents all the fruits that go together with X. Then, you could ask:
?- suggest(apple, List).
List = [pear, cherry].
The goal findall(Y, ... , ...) uses the Y variable internally and Y is still unbound after the goal is satisfied. So, you should move coexist(X,Y) inside the second argument of findall/3 which is the goal that is satisfied in all possible ways. Th rule below works only if X is instantiated (suggest(+X, -List)).
suggest(X, List) :- findall(Y, (fruit(Y,_,_), coexist(X, Y)), List).
You can read this as follows: "List represents all fruits Y that coexist with X".
When you try to define a predicate in Prolog, first of all pretend that you have written that predicate already and start with imagining how you would use it. That is, what queries you would like to pose.
To me, it looks as if coexist/2 already describes what you want. BTW, may_coexist/2 might be a more descriptive name. Why do you want this in a separate list? And why using fruit/3 at all? But for the sake of the question let's assume that this makes sense. So essentially you would have now a relation fruit_compatible/2:
fruit_compatible(F, G) :-
fruit(F, _, _),
may_coexist(F, G),
fruit(G, _, _). % maybe you want to add this?
And now, let's assume you want this list too. So you would have a relation fruit_suggestions/2. How to use it?
?- fruit_suggestions(apple, L).
L = [cherry,pear].
or ... should it be rather L = [pear,cherry]? Or both?
?- fruit_suggestions(lemon, L).
L = [orange].
So every time I want a suggestion I have to think of a fruit. Always thinking: what fruit should it be? Fortunately there is a less demanding way in Prolog: Simply use a variable instead of the fruit! Now we should get all suggestions at once!
?- fruit_suggestions(F, L).
F = apple, L = [cherry, pear]
; F = lemon, L = [orange]
; F = cromulon, L = [embiggy, mushfruit].
So we need to implement it such that it will behave that way. findall/3 alone does not solve this. And implementing it manually is far from trivial. But there is setof/3 which handles variables in exactly that manner. Many of the tiny nitty-gritty design decisions have already been made, like that the list will be sorted ascendingly.
fruit_suggestions(F, L) :-
setof(G, fruit_compatible(F, G), L).
Edit: Due to the discussion below, here would be a solution that also permits empty lists. Note that this sounds trivial but it is not. To see this, consider the query:
?- fruit_suggestions(F, []).
What does it mean? What should F be? Also things that are no fruits at all? In that case we would have to produce solutions for everything. Like F = badger ; F = 42 ; .... Most probably this does not make much sense. What might be intended is those fruits that are incompatible with everything. To this end, we need to add a new rule:
fruit_suggestions(F, []) :-
setof(t,X^Y^fruit(F,X,Y),_),
\+ fruit_compatible(F, _).
fruit_suggestions(F, L) :-
setof(G, fruit_compatible(F, G), L).
Noam Chomsky - formal languages - type 1 - context sensitive grammar
Does AB->BA violate the rule? I assume it does.
A -> aAB does not violate condition?
aAB->ABc violates condition?
Using the wikipedia link provided, you can answer each question if you can map your production rules to the form:
iAr -> ibr, where A is a single non-terminal, i and r are (possibly empty) strings of terminals and non-terminals, and b is a non-empty string of terminals and non-terminals.
In other words, look at each of your rules, and try to make suitable choices for i, A, r, and b.
Before we look at your questions, let's look at some hypothetical examples:
Is CRC -> CRRRRRC a valid context-sensitive rule?
Yes. I can choose i=empty, A=C, r=RC, and b=CRRRR. Note, I could have made other choices that work, too.
Is xYz -> xWzv a valid context-sensitive rule?
No. There is no choice for i, A, and r that allow a match. If I chose i=x A=Y, r=z, and b=W, that trailing v screws things up.
Is xY -> xWzv a valid context-sensitive rule?
Yes. I can choose i=x, A=Y, r=empty, and b=Wzv.
This is the scheme you should use to answer your questions. Now, let's look at those:
AB -> BA: Assume you choose either A or B to be your single non-terminal. The choice fixes i and r (one will be empty, the other will be the non-terminal you didn't choose). Is there a string of the form ibr that can match based on how you fixed i and r? In other words, can you choose the string to replace b that maps to your rule?
A -> aAB. I hope the choice of your single non-terminal on the left is intuitively obvious. This choice will again fix i and r. Does the right map to a suitable ibr form where b is a nonempty string of terminals and nonterminals?
aAB -> ABc. Again, choose A or B to be your single non-terminal. This fixes i and r. Is there a choice that allows you to choose a suitable ibr?