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I'm new to formal language and automata theory and I was left alone with this exercise. The task is to define a formal grammar for given language.

$Σ \in \{a,b\}$

$L = \{ w \in Σ^*\, |\, |w| \equiv 2 \mod 3 \} $

I already solved tasks of that kind, but now i struggle to understand what $|w| \equiv 2 \mod 3$ means. $|w|$ means the length of $w$ right? Does $\equiv 2 \mod 3$ mean that $|w|$ should be $2$ (because 2 modulo 3 is 2)?

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    $\begingroup$ Note that this is a pure mathematics question (the context of formal languages is rather irrelevant) so you should have posted it to Mathematics. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael ♦
    Nov 3, 2017 at 12:14
  • $\begingroup$ But if he did not completely understand the mod notation, how could he be sure that it is more about mathematics than CS, @Raphael ? And he also asked about |w| (yes, only for reassurance), which is clearly formal languages. $\endgroup$
    – Peter Leupold
    Nov 3, 2017 at 12:31
  • $\begingroup$ @PeterLeupold Raphael is informing, not blaming. Obviously, if the asker had known that their question is better-suited to another site, they would have posted it there rather than here. $\endgroup$
    – David Richerby
    Nov 3, 2017 at 17:05

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Yes, $|w|$ is the length of $w$.

So $|w| \equiv 2 \mod 3$ means that the length of w divided by three should have the remainder 2. It should be from the set $\{2, 5, 8, \dots\}$.

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