L-FLAT: Logtalk Toolkit for Formal Languages and Automata Theory

TL;DR

L-FLAT is a Logtalk Toolkit designed to aid teaching of Formal Languages and Automata Theory, enabling definition and testing of languages and automata with an extendable, portable framework and integrated automatic grading.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, object-oriented toolkit for formal languages and automata education, supporting multiple mechanisms and integrating with web-based grading systems.

Findings

Supports various automata and language mechanisms

Provides a portable, extendable framework

Includes automatic grading via Mooshak

Abstract

We describe L-FLAT, a Logtalk Toolkit for teaching Formal Languages and Automata Theory. L-FLAT supports the definition of \textsl{alphabets}, the definition of \textsl{orders} over alphabet symbols, the partial definition of \textsl{languages} using unit tests, and the definition of \textsl{mechanisms}, which implement language generators or language recognizers. Supported mechanisms include \textsl{predicates}, \textsl{regular expressions}, \textsl{finite automata}, \textsl{context-free grammars}, \textsl{Turing machines}, and \textsl{push-down automata}. L-FLAT entities are implemented using the object-oriented features of Logtalk, providing a highly portable and easily extendable framework. The use of L-FLAT in educational environments is enhanced by supporting Mooshak, a web application that features automatic grading of submitted programs.