DFA stands for Deterministic Finite Automaton, which is a mathematical model used to recognize patterns in strings of characters. In this case, the DFA is designed to accept strings that contain either "ab" or "ba" as a substring.
The DFA has a set of states and transitions between those states based on the input characters. It starts at the initial state and reads each character of the input string, following the transitions until it reaches an accepting state. In this case, the DFA would accept the string if it contains either "ab" or "ba" as a substring.
Yes, a DFA can accept both "ab" and "ba" as substrings if it has transitions for both patterns. The DFA would have two accepting states, one for each substring, and the transitions would lead to the corresponding accepting state depending on the input characters.
No, there are other models such as Non-Deterministic Finite Automaton (NFA) or Regular Expressions that can also recognize patterns in strings. However, DFA is a commonly used and efficient model for this type of problem.
To design a DFA for this problem, you would need to define the states, transitions, and accepting states based on the input alphabet and the desired substrings. It would involve careful consideration of the possible combinations of input characters and their corresponding transitions. You can also use tools such as state diagrams or regular expressions to aid in the design process.