Simple state machine example in C#?

Let’s start with this simple state diagram:

We have:

• 4 states (Inactive, Active, Paused, and Exited)
• 5 types of state transitions (Begin Command, End Command, Pause Command, Resume Command, Exit Command).

You can convert this to C# in a handful of ways, such as performing a switch statement on the current state and command, or looking up transitions in a transition table. For this simple state machine, I prefer a transition table, which is very easy to represent using a Dictionary:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace Juliet
{
    public enum ProcessState
    {
        Inactive,
        Active,
        Paused,
        Terminated
    }

    public enum Command
    {
        Begin,
        End,
        Pause,
        Resume,
        Exit
    }

    public class Process
    {
        class StateTransition
        {
            readonly ProcessState CurrentState;
            readonly Command Command;

            public StateTransition(ProcessState currentState, Command command)
            {
                CurrentState = currentState;
                Command = command;
            }

            public override int GetHashCode()
            {
                return 17 + 31 * CurrentState.GetHashCode() + 31 * Command.GetHashCode();
            }

            public override bool Equals(object obj)
            {
                StateTransition other = obj as StateTransition;
                return other != null && this.CurrentState == other.CurrentState && this.Command == other.Command;
            }
        }

        Dictionary<StateTransition, ProcessState> transitions;
        public ProcessState CurrentState { get; private set; }

        public Process()
        {
            CurrentState = ProcessState.Inactive;
            transitions = new Dictionary<StateTransition, ProcessState>
            {
                { new StateTransition(ProcessState.Inactive, Command.Exit), ProcessState.Terminated },
                { new StateTransition(ProcessState.Inactive, Command.Begin), ProcessState.Active },
                { new StateTransition(ProcessState.Active, Command.End), ProcessState.Inactive },
                { new StateTransition(ProcessState.Active, Command.Pause), ProcessState.Paused },
                { new StateTransition(ProcessState.Paused, Command.End), ProcessState.Inactive },
                { new StateTransition(ProcessState.Paused, Command.Resume), ProcessState.Active }
            };
        }

        public ProcessState GetNext(Command command)
        {
            StateTransition transition = new StateTransition(CurrentState, command);
            ProcessState nextState;
            if (!transitions.TryGetValue(transition, out nextState))
                throw new Exception("Invalid transition: " + CurrentState + " -> " + command);
            return nextState;
        }

        public ProcessState MoveNext(Command command)
        {
            CurrentState = GetNext(command);
            return CurrentState;
        }
    }


    public class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Process p = new Process();
            Console.WriteLine("Current State = " + p.CurrentState);
            Console.WriteLine("Command.Begin: Current State = " + p.MoveNext(Command.Begin));
            Console.WriteLine("Command.Pause: Current State = " + p.MoveNext(Command.Pause));
            Console.WriteLine("Command.End: Current State = " + p.MoveNext(Command.End));
            Console.WriteLine("Command.Exit: Current State = " + p.MoveNext(Command.Exit));
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

As a matter of personal preference, I like to design my state machines with a GetNext function to return the next state deterministically, and a MoveNext function to mutate the state machine.