Re: computing LOOKAHEAD sets

Vangelis Katsikaros wrote:
> I am a computer science student and I would like to ask something. I
> cant fully understand how I compute the LOOKAHEAD set for a grammar.
>
> For my exams we use LOOKAHEAD to identify a LL(1) grammar. The procces
> includes computing firstly FIRST and FOLLOW sets. Then using them we can
> compute the LOOKAHEAD. But I cant fully understand this second process.
>
> I know how to compute FIRST and FOLLOW set and I would like a
> description or algorithm for computing the LOOKAHEAD from these.


Vangelis,


Always start with a reduced grammar, i.e. the grammar with all
useless symbols/rules removed (full definition of this below).
Then LA(A -> x) = if nullable(x) then first(x) union follow(A)
                                      else first(x)


Here, of course A is a nonterminal, x a string of (non-)terminals.


To make a grammar reduced do the following two steps:
1. remove all nonterminating symbols
2. remove all unreachable symbols (and their rules)


With regards,


Jan Jongejan
Dept. Comp.Sci.,
Univ. of Groningen,
Netherlands.

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