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I am stuck on a question. Lets say there is a string that can be created from three alphabets a,b,c the condition is number of a<= number of b<= number of c. I can solve if there are a and b (two alphabets) but I am not able to solve for 3. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

user2943731
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The basic problem here is that context-free languages are not closed under intersection.

The example you give illustrates this. Thus, $\{ w\in\{a,b,c\}^* \mid |w|_a \le |w|_b\}$ is context-free, and similarly, so is $\{ w\in\{a,b,c\}^* \mid |w|_b \le |w|_c\}$. The intersection of these two languages $\{ w\in\{a,b,c\}^* \mid |w|_a \le |w|_b \le |w|_c\}$ is not context-free.

Hendrik Jan
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