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ɛ-productions in context-free grammars

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Summary

The effect of ɛ-productions on the space complexity of various context-free language problems is investigated. It is shown that the removal of ɛ-productions from a context-free grammar can probably not be achieved with small storage space. This explains the apparent discrepancy between two different results in the literature on the membership problem. By way of contrast, it is shown that the space complexity of the emptiness and the finiteness problems are independent of the presence of ɛ-productions.

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  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Queensland, 4067, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia

    Leslie M. Goldschlager

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  1. Leslie M. Goldschlager
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Goldschlager, L.M. ɛ-productions in context-free grammars. Acta Informatica 16, 303–308 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289308

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289308

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