Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!daveb
From: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Control flow and common sense
Message-ID: <2700@geac.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 88 12:49:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: geac.2700
Posted: Thu May  5 08:49:05 1988
References: <4605@ihlpf.ATT.COM> <5110@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organisation
Lines: 30

In article <5110@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
|      If you are not too concerned about efficiency, the best
|      way to implement a finite state machine is as a two-dimensional
|      table searched by old state and current symbol, yielding new
|      state and perhaps some representation of an action to be carried
|      out.  The neat thing is that your end users can check or even
|      specify the table, and (if your project is sufficiently complex)
|      the table can serve as the basis for tools that draw finite-state
|      diagrams, check test coverage, or even produce automated documentation.

Yup! try using Wart, from the kermit distribution.  It is a
full-fleged (if trivially inefficent) DFA compiler ,with a very nice
notation:

<state1,state2> event {
	some code
}
<state> event {
	more code
}
event {
	general-case code
}

 --dave (I have a slightly more compact version, wart2) c-b
-- 
 David Collier-Brown.                 {mnetor yunexus utgpu}!geac!daveb
 Geac Computers International Inc.,   |  Computer Science loses its
 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, |  memory (if not its mind) 
 CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 |  every 6 months.