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Abstract

In Chap. 3 we studied finite automata, which have a finite amount of memory. In this chapter we introduce a new type of computational model called a pushdown automaton, which can be obtained by giving a nondeterministic finite automaton a memory component called a stack. The stack memorizes an arbitrarily long string, but has the restriction that a symbol must be read and written at one end of the string. It will be shown that a pushdown automaton and a context-free grammar are equivalent in power to specify languages.

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Correspondence to Akira Maruoka .

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag London Limited

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Maruoka, A. (2011). Pushdown Automata. In: Concise Guide to Computation Theory. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-535-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-535-4_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-85729-534-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-85729-535-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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