Deterministic finite automaton

In the theory of computation, a branch of theoretical computer science, a deterministic finite automaton (DFA)—also known as a deterministic finite acceptor (DFA) and a deterministic finite state machine (DFSM) or a deterministic finite state automaton (DFSA)—is a finite-state machine that accepts or rejects strings of symbols and only produces a unique computation (or run) of the automaton for each input string. Deterministic refers to the uniqueness of the computation. In search of the simplest models to capture finite-state machines, Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts were among the first researchers to introduce a concept similar to finite automata in 1943.The figure illustrates a deterministic finite automaton using a state diagram. In the automaton, there are three states: S0, S1, and S2 (denoted graphically by circles).

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