Finito State Machines

An experiment in Finite State Machines (FSM) and automata-based programming.

Finito allows you to declare state machines for widely different devices and programming languages, that are testable, introspectable at runtime, and visually programmable.

Currently supported targets are C (C++ compatible) for microcontrollers etc. and JavaScript for browser/Node.js.

Finito aims to complement and integrate with the Flow-based Programming (FBP) runtimes MicroFlo and NoFlo.

Status

Experimental

• Initial API, JSON format and .fsm DSL exists
• Can execute some very simple machines in browser and microcontroller
• finito dot definition.fsm/json can generate Graphviz for visualization
• Not used in a application yet

Installing

Finito is on NPM

npm install finitosm

Usage

For now see the examples and tests

TODO: document defining a machine using JSON, .fsm DSL, and programmatic API
TODO: document how to implement+run in Javascript/browser
TODO: document how to implement+run in C/microcontroller

Milestones

• 0.1.0: One can create components for MicroFlo using Finito
• x.0.0: One can visually create, introspect and debug state machines, using standalone tool or in combination with Flowhub.io

License

MIT

TODO

v0.1 "minimally useful"

Format

• Find alternate way of doing the 'parametrized' function
• Allow multiple exit/final states

API

• Add tests for fluent JS API

Targets

• C: Add some tests
• JS: Support methods as state actions and predicates?

Tools

• Allow dot renderer to output svg/png directly?
• Add interactive visualization that can show and follow current state of machine, also when machine is "remote", like running on a microcontroller
• Demonstrate integration of machines spanning microcontroller and web
• Add a UI for creating state machines visually

Later

• Allow state transitions in microcontroller to be persisted in ROM, read back out and replayed
• Add support for hierarchical machines
• targets: Add support for FPGAs using VHDL/Verilog
• DSL: Handle more general cases in the the .fsm DSL
• Add a C++ target, with support methods as state actions and predicates