Thread: C Language

  1. #1
    Anirban Ghosh
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    C Language

    C Language is a context free or a context sensitive language?

  2. #2
    Kernel hacker
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    It is a context-free language, as far as I can tell from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context-free_language

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    Mats
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  3. #3
    Anirban Ghosh
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    But friend where it is mentioned C Language!!!

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    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    C is nearly context free. The one exception I can think of is typedef. If typedef precedes a definition the symbol defined becomes a type rather than a variable.

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    Quote Originally Posted by anirban View Post
    But friend where it is mentioned C Language!!!
    C is not explicitly mentioned, but the description of a "context free language" matches C better than the context sensitive description.

    Whiteflags describes the details.

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    Mats
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  6. #6
    Anirban Ghosh
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    Okay so what is the final answer?

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    Quote Originally Posted by anirban View Post
    Okay so what is the final answer?
    So it's a "nearly context free", meaning that there are exceptions to the context freeness, but the majority of the language is context free. I guess it depends on your rules for where it ends up - is a context-free language that has one or two context-sensitive constructs context-free with exceptions [note that typedef, which is the one context-sensitive construct in C is avoidable - it just makes some things a bit harder to do].

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    Mats
    Compilers can produce warnings - make the compiler programmers happy: Use them!
    Please don't PM me for help - and no, I don't do help over instant messengers.

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