A collection of tools for making automata theory and formal languages come alive

Abstract

We present a collection of new and enhanced tools for experimenting with concepts in formal languages and automata theory. New tools, written in Java, include JFLAP for creating and simulating finite automata, pushdown automata and Turing machines; Pâté for parsing restricted and unrestricted grammars and transforming context-free grammars to Chomsky Normal Form; and PumpLemma for proving specific languages are not regular. Enhancements to previous tools LLparse and LRparse, instructional tools for parsing LL(1) and LR(1) grammars, include parsing LL(2) grammars, displaying parse trees, and parsing any context-free grammar with conflict resolution.