title: Quick/Simple Regex/Regular Language Clarification
body: <p>I feel like a moron posting such simple questions on here, but the knowledge base of this site is just amazing.  Thanks for your understanding.</p>
  
  <p>Concerning a question about finding the minimum pumping length (concerning the pumping lemma for regular languages) of a regular expression:</p>
  
  <p>Regular Expression R = 1011 (over the alphabet {0,1})</p>
  
  <p>Aren't the only matches to this string ε (empty string) and 1011?</p>
  
  <p>EDIT-I've been staring at too many kleene stars.  The empty string ε is not in this language.</p>
  
  <p>Properties of regular languages state that if a language can be represented by a finite automaton (or regular expression), then it is regular, and certainly this one can be represented by both.  (And the question obviously leads me to believe the language is regular)</p>
  
  <p>But on the other hand, the pumping lemma (informally) states that all regular languages have a pumping length whereby all strings of at least this length can be split into xyz where y can be repeated without affecting the result.  ε cannot be pumped by definition, and 1011 can't be pumped (I don't think, this is the question) because no other string matches it, so removing or adding instances of y will result in a string that is not accepted/matched.</p>
  
  <p>Where is the error in my logic?</p>
  
  <p>2nd EDIT-Is the answer for any p>4, the language can be pumped by setting x or y or z to be ϕ (the null set), which when concatenated with anything results in the null set?</p>