In the popular (and essential) computer science book, An Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata by Peter Linz, the following formal language is frequently stated:
$$\large{L=\{a^n b^n:n\in\mathbb{Z}^+\}}$$
mainly because this language can not be processed with finite-state automata. This expression mean "Language L consists all strings of 'a's followed by 'b's, in which the number of 'a's and 'b's are equal and non-zero".
Challenge
Write a working program/function which gets a string, containing "a"s and "b"s only, as input and returns/outputs a truth value, saying if this string is valid the formal language L.
Your program cannot use any external computation tools, including network, external programs, etc. Shells are an exception to this rule; Bash, e.g., can use command line utilities.
Your program must return/output the result in a "logical" way, for example: returning 10 instead of 0, "beep" sound, outputting to stdout etc. More info here.
Standard code golf rules apply.
This is a code-golf. Shortest code in bytes wins. Good luck!
Truthy test cases
"ab"
"aabb"
"aaabbb"
"aaaabbbb"
"aaaaabbbbb"
"aaaaaabbbbbb"
Falsy test cases
""
"a"
"b"
"aa"
"ba"
"bb"
"aaa"
"aab"
"aba"
"abb"
"baa"
"bab"
"bba"
"bbb"
"aaaa"
"aaab"
"aaba"
"abaa"
"abab"
"abba"
"abbb"
"baaa"
"baab"
"baba"
"babb"
"bbaa"
"bbab"
"bbba"
"bbbb"
Leaderboard
Here is a Stack Snippet to generate both a regular leaderboard and an overview of winners by language.
/* Configuration */
var QUESTION_ID = 85994; // Obtain this from the url
// It will be like https://XYZ.stackexchange.com/questions/QUESTION_ID/... on any question page
var ANSWER_FILTER = "!t)IWYnsLAZle2tQ3KqrVveCRJfxcRLe";
var COMMENT_FILTER = "!)Q2B_A2kjfAiU78X(md6BoYk";
var OVERRIDE_USER = 48934; // This should be the user ID of the challenge author.
/* App */
var answers = [], answers_hash, answer_ids, answer_page = 1, more_answers = true, comment_page;
function answersUrl(index) {
return "https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/questions/" + QUESTION_ID + "/answers?page=" + index + "&pagesize=100&order=desc&sort=creation&site=codegolf&filter=" + ANSWER_FILTER;
}
function commentUrl(index, answers) {
return "https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/answers/" + answers.join(';') + "/comments?page=" + index + "&pagesize=100&order=desc&sort=creation&site=codegolf&filter=" + COMMENT_FILTER;
}
function getAnswers() {
jQuery.ajax({
url: answersUrl(answer_page++),
method: "get",
dataType: "jsonp",
crossDomain: true,
success: function (data) {
answers.push.apply(answers, data.items);
answers_hash = [];
answer_ids = [];
data.items.forEach(function(a) {
a.comments = [];
var id = +a.share_link.match(/\d+/);
answer_ids.push(id);
answers_hash[id] = a;
});
if (!data.has_more) more_answers = false;
comment_page = 1;
getComments();
}
});
}
function getComments() {
jQuery.ajax({
url: commentUrl(comment_page++, answer_ids),
method: "get",
dataType: "jsonp",
crossDomain: true,
success: function (data) {
data.items.forEach(function(c) {
if (c.owner.user_id === OVERRIDE_USER)
answers_hash[c.post_id].comments.push(c);
});
if (data.has_more) getComments();
else if (more_answers) getAnswers();
else process();
}
});
}
getAnswers();
var SCORE_REG = /<h\d>\s*([^\n,]*[^\s,]),.*?(\d+)(?=[^\n\d<>]*(?:<(?:s>[^\n<>]*<\/s>|[^\n<>]+>)[^\n\d<>]*)*<\/h\d>)/;
var OVERRIDE_REG = /^Override\s*header:\s*/i;
function getAuthorName(a) {
return a.owner.display_name;
}
function process() {
var valid = [];
answers.forEach(function(a) {
var body = a.body;
a.comments.forEach(function(c) {
if(OVERRIDE_REG.test(c.body))
body = '<h1>' + c.body.replace(OVERRIDE_REG, '') + '</h1>';
});
var match = body.match(SCORE_REG);
if (match)
valid.push({
user: getAuthorName(a),
size: +match[2],
language: match[1],
link: a.share_link,
});
});
valid.sort(function (a, b) {
var aB = a.size,
bB = b.size;
return aB - bB
});
var languages = {};
var place = 1;
var lastSize = null;
var lastPlace = 1;
valid.forEach(function (a) {
if (a.size != lastSize)
lastPlace = place;
lastSize = a.size;
++place;
var answer = jQuery("#answer-template").html();
answer = answer.replace("{{PLACE}}", lastPlace + ".")
.replace("{{NAME}}", a.user)
.replace("{{LANGUAGE}}", a.language)
.replace("{{SIZE}}", a.size)
.replace("{{LINK}}", a.link);
answer = jQuery(answer);
jQuery("#answers").append(answer);
var lang = a.language;
if (/<a/.test(lang)) lang = jQuery(lang).text();
languages[lang] = languages[lang] || {lang: a.language, user: a.user, size: a.size, link: a.link};
});
var langs = [];
for (var lang in languages)
if (languages.hasOwnProperty(lang))
langs.push(languages[lang]);
langs.sort(function (a, b) {
if (a.lang > b.lang) return 1;
if (a.lang < b.lang) return -1;
return 0;
});
for (var i = 0; i < langs.length; ++i)
{
var language = jQuery("#language-template").html();
var lang = langs[i];
language = language.replace("{{LANGUAGE}}", lang.lang)
.replace("{{NAME}}", lang.user)
.replace("{{SIZE}}", lang.size)
.replace("{{LINK}}", lang.link);
language = jQuery(language);
jQuery("#languages").append(language);
}
}body { text-align: left !important}
#answer-list {
padding: 10px;
width: 290px;
float: left;
}
#language-list {
padding: 10px;
width: 290px;
float: left;
}
table thead {
font-weight: bold;
}
table td {
padding: 5px;
}<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="//cdn.sstatic.net/codegolf/all.css?v=83c949450c8b">
<div id="answer-list">
<h2>Leaderboard</h2>
<table class="answer-list">
<thead>
<tr><td></td><td>Author</td><td>Language</td><td>Size</td></tr>
</thead>
<tbody id="answers">
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div id="language-list">
<h2>Winners by Language</h2>
<table class="language-list">
<thead>
<tr><td>Language</td><td>User</td><td>Score</td></tr>
</thead>
<tbody id="languages">
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<table style="display: none">
<tbody id="answer-template">
<tr><td>{{PLACE}}</td><td>{{NAME}}</td><td>{{LANGUAGE}}</td><td>{{SIZE}}</td><td><a href="{{LINK}}">Link</a></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="display: none">
<tbody id="language-template">
<tr><td>{{LANGUAGE}}</td><td>{{NAME}}</td><td>{{SIZE}}</td><td><a href="{{LINK}}">Link</a></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
empty string == truthyandnon-empty string == falsybe acceptable? \$\endgroup\$a^n b^nor similar, rather than just the number ofas equalling the number ofbs) \$\endgroup\$