CakePHP State Machine

Documentation is not finished yet either. See the tests if you want to learn something.

What is a State Machine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_machine

Installation

First you need to alter the tables of the models you want to use StateMachine:

ALTER TABLE `vehicle` ADD `state` VARCHAR(50);
ALTER TABLE `vehicle` ADD `previous_state` VARCHAR(50);

Features

Callbacks on states and transitions
Custom methods may be added to your model
is($state), can($transition), on($transition, 'before|after', callback) and when($state, callback) methods allows you to control the whole flow. transition($transition) is used to move between two states.
Roles and rules
Graphviz

Naming conventions

Transitions and states in $transitions should be lowercased and underscored. The method names are in turn camelized.

Example: shift_up => canShiftUp() => shiftUp() first_gear => isFirstGear()

How to Use

App::uses('StateMachineBehavior', 'StateMachine.Model/Behavior');

class VehicleModel extends AppModel {

    public $useTable = 'Vehicle';

    public $actsAs = array('StateMachine.StateMachine');

    public $initialState = 'parked';

    public $transitionRules = array(
        'ignite' => array(
            'role' => array('driver'),
            'depends' => 'has_key'
        )
    );

    public $transitions = array(
        'ignite' => array(
            'parked' => 'idling',
            'stalled' => 'stalled'
        ),
        'park' => array(
            'idling' => 'parked',
            'first_gear' => 'parked'
        ),
        'shift_up' => array(
            'idling' => 'first_gear',
            'first_gear' => 'second_gear',
            'second_gear' => 'third_gear'
        ),
        'shift_down' => array(
            'first_gear' => 'idling',
            'second_gear' => 'first_gear',
            'third_gear' => 'second_gear'
        ),
        'crash' => array(
            'first_gear' => 'stalled',
            'second_gear' => 'stalled',
            'third_gear' => 'stalled'
        ),
        'repair' => array(
            'stalled' => 'parked'
        ),
        'idle' => array(
            'first_gear' => 'idling'
        ),
        'turn_off' => array(
            'all' => 'parked'
        )
    );

    public function __construct($id = false, $ds = false, $table = false) {
        parent::__construct($id, $ds, $table);
        $this->on('ignite', 'after', function() {
            // the car just ignited!
        });
    }

    public function isMoving() {
        return in_array($this->getCurrentState(), array('first_gear', 'second_gear', 'third_gear'));
    }

    public function hasKey($role) {
        return $role == 'driver';
    }

}

class Controller .... {
    public function method() {
        $this->Vehicle->create();
        $this->Vehicle->save(array(
            'Vehicle' => array(
                'title' => 'Toybota'
            )
        ));
        // $this->Vehicle->getCurrentState() == 'parked'
        if ($this->Vehicle->canIgnite('driver')) {
            $this->Vehicle->ignite('driver');
            $this->Vehicle->shiftUp();
            // $this->Vehicle->getCurrentState() == 'first_gear'
        }
    }
}

Graphviz

Here's how to state machine of the Vehicle would look like if you saved:

$model->toDot()

into fsm.gv and ran:

dot -Tpng -ofsm.png fsm.gv