Python state-machine design

Question

Related to this Stack Overflow question (C state-machine design), could you Stack Overflow folks share your Python state-machine design techniques

Answer 1

I think that the tool PySCXML needs a closer look too.

This project uses the W3C definition: State Chart XML (SCXML): State Machine Notation for Control Abstraction

SCXML provides a generic state-machine based execution environment based on CCXML and Harel State Tables

Currently, SCXML is a working draft; but chances are quite high that it is getting a W3C recommendation soon (it is the 9th draft).

Another interesting point to highlight is that there is an Apache Commons project aimed at creating and maintaining a Java SCXML engine capable of executing a state machine defined using a SCXML document, while abstracting out the environment interfaces...

And for certain other tools, supporting this technology will emerge in the future when SCXML is leaving its draft-status...

Answer 2

It probably depends on how complex your state machine is. For simple state machines, a dict of dicts (of event-keys to state-keys for DFAs, or event-keys to lists/sets/tuples of state-keys for NFAs) will probably be the simplest thing to write and understand.

For more complex state machines, I've heard good things about SMC, which can compile declarative state machine descriptions to code in a wide variety of languages, including Python.

Answer 3

Here is a solution for "statefull objects" I've come up with, but it is rather inefficient for your intended purpose because state changes are relatively expensive. However, it may work well for objects which change state infrequently or undergo only a bounded number of state changes. The advantage is that once the state is changed, there is no redundant indirection.

class T:
    """
    Descendant of `object` that rectifies `__new__` overriding.

    This class is intended to be listed as the last base class (just
    before the implicit `object`).  It is a part of a workaround for

      * https://bugs.python.org/issue36827
    """

    @staticmethod
    def __new__(cls, *_args, **_kwargs):
        return object.__new__(cls)

class Stateful:
    """
    Abstract base class (or mixin) for "stateful" classes.

    Subclasses must implement `InitState` mixin.
    """

    @staticmethod
    def __new__(cls, *args, **kwargs):
        # XXX: see https://stackoverflow.com/a/9639512
        class CurrentStateProxy(cls.InitState):
            @staticmethod
            def _set_state(state_cls=cls.InitState):
                __class__.__bases__ = (state_cls,)

        class Eigenclass(CurrentStateProxy, cls):
            __new__ = None  # just in case

        return super(__class__, cls).__new__(Eigenclass, *args, **kwargs)

# XXX: see https://bugs.python.org/issue36827 for the reason for `T`.
class StatefulThing(Stateful, T):
    class StateA:
        """First state mixin."""

        def say_hello(self):
            self._say("Hello!")
            self.hello_count += 1
            self._set_state(self.StateB)
            return True

        def say_goodbye(self):
            self._say("Another goodbye?")
            return False

    class StateB:
        """Second state mixin."""

        def say_hello(self):
            self._say("Another hello?")
            return False

        def say_goodbye(self):
            self._say("Goodbye!")
            self.goodbye_count += 1
            self._set_state(self.StateA)
            return True

    # This one is required by `Stateful`.
    class InitState(StateA):
        """Third state mixin -- the initial state."""

        def say_goodbye(self):
            self._say("Why?")
            return False

    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name
        self.hello_count = self.goodbye_count = 0

    def _say(self, message):
        print("{}: {}".format(self.name, message))

    def say_hello_followed_by_goodbye(self):
        self.say_hello() and self.say_goodbye()

# ----------
# ## Demo ##
# ----------
if __name__ == "__main__":
    t1 = StatefulThing("t1")
    t2 = StatefulThing("t2")
    print("> t1, say hello.")
    t1.say_hello()
    print("> t2, say goodbye.")
    t2.say_goodbye()
    print("> t2, say hello.")
    t2.say_hello()
    print("> t1, say hello.")
    t1.say_hello()
    print("> t1, say hello followed by goodbye.")
    t1.say_hello_followed_by_goodbye()
    print("> t2, say goodbye.")
    t2.say_goodbye()
    print("> t2, say hello followed by goodbye.")
    t2.say_hello_followed_by_goodbye()
    print("> t1, say goodbye.")
    t1.say_goodbye()
    print("> t2, say hello.")
    t2.say_hello()
    print("---")
    print( "t1 said {} hellos and {} goodbyes."
           .format(t1.hello_count, t1.goodbye_count) )
    print( "t2 said {} hellos and {} goodbyes."
           .format(t2.hello_count, t2.goodbye_count) )

    # Expected output:
    #
    #     > t1, say hello.
    #     t1: Hello!
    #     > t2, say goodbye.
    #     t2: Why?
    #     > t2, say hello.
    #     t2: Hello!
    #     > t1, say hello.
    #     t1: Another hello?
    #     > t1, say hello followed by goodbye.
    #     t1: Another hello?
    #     > t2, say goodbye.
    #     t2: Goodbye!
    #     > t2, say hello followed by goodbye.
    #     t2: Hello!
    #     t2: Goodbye!
    #     > t1, say goodbye.
    #     t1: Goodbye!
    #     > t2, say hello.
    #     t2: Hello!
    #     ---
    #     t1 said 1 hellos and 1 goodbyes.
    #     t2 said 3 hellos and 2 goodbyes.

I've posted a "request for remarks" here.

Answer 4

I don't really get the question. The State Design pattern is pretty clear. See the Design Patterns book.

class SuperState( object ):
    def someStatefulMethod( self ):
        raise NotImplementedError()
    def transitionRule( self, input ):
        raise NotImplementedError()

class SomeState( SuperState ):
    def someStatefulMethod( self ):
        actually do something()
    def transitionRule( self, input ):
        return NextState()

That's pretty common boilerplate, used in Java, C++, Python (and I'm sure other languages, also).

If your state transition rules happen to be trivial, there are some optimizations to push the transition rule itself into the superclass.

Note that we need to have forward references, so we refer to classes by name, and use eval to translate a class name to an actual class. The alternative is to make the transition rules instance variables instead of class variables and then create the instances after all the classes are defined.

class State( object ):
    def transitionRule( self, input ):
        return eval(self.map[input])()

class S1( State ): 
    map = { "input": "S2", "other": "S3" }
    pass # Overrides to state-specific methods

class S2( State ):
    map = { "foo": "S1", "bar": "S2" }

class S3( State ):
    map = { "quux": "S1" }

In some cases, your event isn't as simple as testing objects for equality, so a more general transition rule is to use a proper list of function-object pairs.

class State( object ):
    def transitionRule( self, input ):
        next_states = [ s for f,s in self.map if f(input)  ]
        assert len(next_states) >= 1, "faulty transition rule"
        return eval(next_states[0])()

class S1( State ):
    map = [ (lambda x: x == "input", "S2"), (lambda x: x == "other", "S3" ) ]

class S2( State ):
    map = [ (lambda x: "bar" <= x <= "foo", "S3"), (lambda x: True, "S1") ]

Since the rules are evaluated sequentially, this allows a "default" rule.

Answer 5

I also was not happy with the current options for state_machines so I wrote the state_machine library.

You can install it by pip install state_machine and use it like so:

@acts_as_state_machine
class Person():
    name = 'Billy'

    sleeping = State(initial=True)
    running = State()
    cleaning = State()

    run = Event(from_states=sleeping, to_state=running)
    cleanup = Event(from_states=running, to_state=cleaning)
    sleep = Event(from_states=(running, cleaning), to_state=sleeping)

    @before('sleep')
    def do_one_thing(self):
        print "{} is sleepy".format(self.name)

    @before('sleep')
    def do_another_thing(self):
        print "{} is REALLY sleepy".format(self.name)

    @after('sleep')
    def snore(self):
        print "Zzzzzzzzzzzz"

    @after('sleep')
    def big_snore(self):
        print "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

person = Person()
print person.current_state == person.sleeping       # True
print person.is_sleeping                            # True
print person.is_running                             # False
person.run()
print person.is_running                             # True
person.sleep()

# Billy is sleepy
# Billy is REALLY sleepy
# Zzzzzzzzzzzz
# Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

print person.is_sleeping                            # True

Answer 6

I think S. Lott's answer is a much better way to implement a state machine, but if you still want to continue with your approach, using (state,event) as the key for your dict is better. Modifying your code:

class HandlerFsm(object):

  _fsm = {
    ("state_a","event"): "next_state",
    #...
  }