Conservative Ambiguity Detection in Context-Free Grammars

The ability to detect ambiguities in context-free grammars is vital for their use in several fields, but the problem is undecidable in the general case. We present a safe, conservative approach, where the approximations cannot result in overlooked ambiguous cases. We analyze the complexity of the verification, and provide formal comparisons with several other ambiguity detection methods. Key words: Ambiguity, context-free grammar, verification, position graph ACM categories: F.3.1 [Logics and Meanings of Programs]: Specifying and Verifying and Reasoning about Programs; F.4.2 [Mathematical Logic and Formal Languages]: Grammars and Other Rewriting Systems

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ICALP
• Authors: Sylvain Schmitz
• Keywords: Ambiguity Detection Methods, Context-free Grammar, ICALP 2007, Overlooked Ambiguous Cases, Theoretical Computer Science