Описание тега left-recursion

A special kind of recursion, defined through a particular grammar property: grammar is left-recursive if we can find some non-terminal A which will eventually derive a sentential form with itself as the left-symbol.

Left-recursive grammar can be immediate or indirect:

Immediate left recursion

Immediate left recursion occurs in rules of the form

A → Aa | b

where a and b are sequences of nonterminals and terminals, and b doesn't start with A. For example, the rule

Expr → Expr + Term

is immediately left-recursive.

Indirect left recursion

Indirect left recursion in its simplest form could be defined as:

A → Ba | C
B → Ab | D

possibly giving the derivation A ⇒ Ba ⇒ Aba ⇒ ...

More generally, for the nonterminals A0, A1,..., An, indirect left recursion can be defined as being of the form:

A0 → A1a_1 | ...
A1 → A2a_2 | ...
...
An → A0a_n+1 | ...

where a_1, a_2,..., a_n are sequences of nonterminals and terminals.

Source: Wikipedia