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/****************************************************************************
**
** Copyright (C) 2013 Digia Plc and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
** Contact: http://www.qt-project.org/legal
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/*!
\group qmlstatemachine
\page qmlstatemachine.html
\title The Declarative State Machine Framework
\brief An overview of the Declarative State Machine Framework for constructing and executing state graphs.
\ingroup frameworks-technologies
\tableofcontents
The Declarative State Machine Framework provides classes for creating and executing
state graphs in QML. The concepts and notation are based on those from Harel's
\l{http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~dharel/SCANNED.PAPERS/Statecharts.pdf}
{Statecharts: A visual formalism for complex systems}, which
is also the basis of UML state diagrams. The semantics of state machine
execution are based on \l{State Chart XML: State Machine Notation for
Control Abstraction}{State Chart XML (SCXML)}.
Statecharts provide a graphical way of modeling how a system reacts to
stimuli. This is done by defining the possible \e states that the system can
be in, and how the system can move from one state to another (\e transitions
between states). A key characteristic of event-driven systems (such as Qt
applications) is that behavior often depends not only on the last or current
event, but also the events that preceded it. With statecharts, this
information is easy to express.
The Declarative State Machine Framework provides an API and execution model that can
be used to effectively embed the elements and semantics of statecharts in Qml
applications. The framework integrates tightly with Qt's meta-object system;
for example, transitions between states can be triggered by signals, and
states can be configured to set properties and invoke methods on QObjects.
Qt's event system is used to drive the state machines.
The state graph in the Declarative State Machine Framework is hierarchical. States
can be nested inside of other states, and the current configuration of the
state machine consists of the set of states which are currently active.
All the states in a valid configuration of the state machine will
have a common ancestor.
For user interfaces with multiple visual states, independent of the
application's logical state, consider using QML States and Transitions.
\section1 QML types in the Declarative State Machine Framework
These QML types are provided by QML for creating event-driven state machines.
\annotatedlist qmlstatemachine
\section1 A Simple State Machine
To demonstrate the core functionality of the State Machine API, let's look
at a small example: A state machine with three states, \c s1, \c s2 and \c
s3. The state machine is controlled by a single QPushButton; when the button
is clicked, the machine transitions to another state. Initially, the state
machine is in state \c s1. The statechart for this machine is as follows:
\image statemachine-button.png
\omit
\caption This is a caption
\endomit
The following snippet shows the code needed to create such a state machine.
\snippet qml/statemachine/statemachine-button.qml 0
The state machine executes asynchronously, i.e. it becomes part of your
application's event loop.
\section1 State Machines That Finish
The state machine defined in the previous section never finishes. In order
for a state machine to be able to finish, it needs to have a top-level \e
final state (FinalState object). When the state machine enters a top-level
final state, the machine will emit the \l{StateBase::finished}{finished}
signal and halt.
All you need to do to introduce a final state in the graph is create a
FinalState object and use it as the target of one or more transitions.
\section1 Sharing Transitions By Grouping States
Assume we wanted the user to be able to quit the application at any time by
clicking a Quit button. In order to achieve this, we need to create a final
state and make it the target of a transition associated with the Quit
button's clicked() signal. We could add a transition from each of \c s1, \c
s2 and \c s3; however, this seems redundant, and one would also have to
remember to add such a transition from every new state that is added in the
future.
We can achieve the same behavior (namely that clicking the Quit button quits
the state machine, regardless of which state the state machine is in) by
grouping states \c s1, \c s2 and \c s3. This is done by creating a new
top-level state and making the three original states children of the new
state. The following diagram shows the new state machine.
\image statemachine-button-nested.png
\omit
\caption This is a caption
\endomit
The three original states have been renamed \c s11, \c s12 and \c s13 to
reflect that they are now children of the new top-level state, \c s1. Child
states implicitly inherit the transitions of their parent state. This means
it is now sufficient to add a single transition from \c s1 to the final
state \c s2. New states added to \c s1 will also automatically inherit this
transition.
All that's needed to group states is to specify the proper parent when the
state is created. You also need to specify which of the child states is the
initial one (i.e. which child state the state machine should enter when the
parent state is the target of a transition).
\snippet qml/statemachine/statemachine-button-nested.qml 0
In this case we want the application to quit when the state machine is
finished, so the machine's finished() signal is connected to the
application's quit() slot.
A child state can override an inherited transition. For example, the
following code adds a transition that effectively causes the Quit button to
be ignored when the state machine is in state \c s12.
\snippet qml/statemachine/statemachine-button-nested-ignore-quit.qml 0
A transition can have any state as its target, i.e. the target state does
not have to be on the same level in the state hierarchy as the source state.
\section1 Using History States to Save and Restore the Current State
Imagine that we wanted to add an "interrupt" mechanism to the example
discussed in the previous section; the user should be able to click a button
to have the state machine perform some non-related task, after which the
state machine should resume whatever it was doing before (i.e. return to the
old state, which is one of \c s11, \c s12 and \c s13 in this case).
Such behavior can easily be modeled using \e{history states}. A history
state (HistoryState object) is a pseudo-state that represents the child
state that the parent state was in the last time the parent state was
exited.
A history state is created as a child of the state for which we wish to
record the current child state; when the state machine detects the presence
of such a state at runtime, it automatically records the current (real)
child state when the parent state is exited. A transition to the history
state is in fact a transition to the child state that the state machine had
previously saved; the state machine automatically "forwards" the transition
to the real child state.
The following diagram shows the state machine after the interrupt mechanism
has been added.
\image statemachine-button-history.png
\omit
\caption This is a caption
\endomit
The following code shows how it can be implemented; in this example we
simply display a message box when \c s3 is entered, then immediately return
to the previous child state of \c s1 via the history state.
\snippet qml/statemachine/statemachine-button-history.qml 0
\section1 Using Parallel States to Avoid a Combinatorial Explosion of States
Assume that you wanted to model a set of mutually exclusive properties of a
car in a single state machine. Let's say the properties we are interested in
are Clean vs Dirty, and Moving vs Not moving. It would take four mutually
exclusive states and eight transitions to be able to represent and freely
move between all possible combinations.
\image statemachine-nonparallel.png
\omit
\caption This is a caption
\endomit
If we added a third property (say, Red vs Blue), the total number of states
would double, to eight; and if we added a fourth property (say, Enclosed vs
Convertible), the total number of states would double again, to 16.
Using parallel states, the total number of states and transitions grows
linearly as we add more properties, instead of exponentially. Furthermore,
states can be added to or removed from the parallel state without affecting
any of their sibling states.
\image statemachine-parallel.png
\omit
\caption This is a caption
\endomit
To create a parallel state group, set childMode to QState.ParallelStates.
\qml
StateBase {
id: s1
childMode: QState.ParallelStates
StateBase {
id: s11
}
StateBase {
id: s12
}
}
\endqml
When a parallel state group is entered, all its child states will be
simultaneously entered. Transitions within the individual child states
operate normally. However, any of the child states may take a transition which exits the parent
state. When this happens, the parent state and all of its child states are exited.
The parallelism in the State Machine framework follows an interleaved semantics. All parallel
operations will be executed in a single, atomic step of the event processing, so no event can
interrupt the parallel operations. However, events will still be processed sequentially, since
the machine itself is single threaded. As an example: Consider the situation where there are two
transitions that exit the same parallel state group, and their conditions become true
simultaneously. In this case, the event that is processed last of the two will not have any
effect, since the first event will already have caused the machine to exit from the parallel
state.
\section1 Detecting that a Composite State has Finished
A child state can be final (a FinalState object); when a final child state
is entered, the parent state emits the StateBase::finished signal. The
following diagram shows a composite state \c s1 which does some processing
before entering a final state:
\image statemachine-finished.png
\omit
\caption This is a caption
\endomit
When \c s1 's final state is entered, \c s1 will automatically emit
\l{StateBase::finished}{finished}. We use a signal transition to cause this event to
trigger a state change:
\qml
StateBase {
id: s1
SignalTransition {
targetState: s2
signal: s1.finished
}
}
\endqml
Using final states in composite states is useful when you want to hide the
internal details of a composite state; i.e. the only thing the outside world
should be able to do is enter the state, and get a notification when the
state has completed its work. This is a very powerful abstraction and
encapsulation mechanism when building complex (deeply nested) state
machines. (In the above example, you could of course create a transition
directly from \c s1 's \c done state rather than relying on \c s1 's
finished() signal, but with the consequence that implementation details of
\c s1 are exposed and depended on).
For parallel state groups, the StateBase::finished signal is emitted when \e
all the child states have entered final states.
\section1 Targetless Transitions
A transition need not have a target state. A transition without a target can
be triggered the same way as any other transition; the difference is that
when a targetless transition is triggered, it doesn't cause any state
changes. This allows you to react to a signal or event when your machine is
in a certain state, without having to leave that state. Example:
\qml
Button {
id: button
text: "button"
StateMachine {
id: stateMachine
initialState: s1
running: true
StateBase {
id: s1
SignalTransition {
signal: button.clicked
onTriggered: console.log("button pressed")
}
}
}
}
\endqml
The "button pressed" message will be displayed each time the button is clicked, but the
state machine will remain in its current state (s1). If the target state
were explicitly set to s1, however, s1 would be exited and re-entered each
time (e.g. the QAbstractState::entered and QAbstractState::exited
signals would be emitted).
*/
|