Construct context-free grammar for $\{a^ib^jc^k : i\le j+k\}$

Question

I'm looking through several of old exam sets in order to prepare for the exam and now I'm stuck on this exercise, where we have to construct a context-free grammar for the language: $$L = \{a^ib^jc^k: i \le j+k \}$$ The best solution I've obtained so far is the following that accepts $\{a^ib^jc^k: i = j+k \}$:

$$\begin{align*} &S\to aSc \mid D\\ &D\to aDb \mid \epsilon \end{align*}$$

This context-free grammar will not create any strings that are not in the language but it will however not create all the possible strings we get with the condition $i \le j+k$.

How do I proceed to solve this?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 29 '13 at 12:11

1

Just allow $S$ to produce $Sc$ and $D$ to produce $Db$, as well as what you already have.

answered Oct 29 '13 at 12:11

Brian M. Scott

616,228

Thanks, didn't expect it to be this simple but I've tried it on a few examples now and it works – John Oct 29 '13 at 13:22
@John: You’re welcome. It’s just a matter of making sure that every time you generate an $a$, you also generate a $b$ or a $c$, whichever is appropriate, while leaving yourself the option of generating $b$ or $c$ on its own as well. – Brian M. Scott Oct 29 '13 at 13:31

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 10 '14 at 17:53

0

alas..it does not work for $a^i b^j c^k$ where $i= j+k$ for

$S\rightarrow aSc|Sc|D$

$D\rightarrow aDb|\epsilon$

consider the parse tree

S

aSc

aaScc

aaSccc

aaDccc

aaccc

fail... the solution is quite a bit more interesting but since I give it as an assignment I will cruelly keep it a secret..

edited Jun 10 '14 at 17:53

usermath

3,516

answered Jun 10 '14 at 17:29

jdm

1

Here's a MathJax tutorial :) – Shaun Jun 10 '14 at 17:50

Construct context-free grammar for $\{a^ib^jc^k : i\le j+k\}$

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