Chapter 1. Founding idea
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## Chapter 1. Founding idea

Let's start with an example taken from the C++ Template Metaprogramming book:

`class player : public state_machine<player>`

`{`

`// The list of FSM states enum states { Empty, Open, Stopped, Playing, Paused , initial_state = Empty };`

`// transition actions void start_playback(play const&) { std::cout << "player::start_playback\n"; }`

`void open_drawer(open_close const&) { std::cout << "player::open_drawer\n"; }`

`void close_drawer(open_close const&) { std::cout << "player::close_drawer\n"; }`

`void store_cd_info(cd_detected const&) { std::cout << "player::store_cd_info\n"; }`

`void stop_playback(stop const&) { std::cout << "player::stop_playback\n"; }`

`void pause_playback(pause const&) { std::cout << "player::pause_playback\n"; }`

`void resume_playback(play const&) { std::cout << "player::resume_playback\n"; }`

`void stop_and_open(open_close const&) { std::cout << "player::stop_and_open\n"; }`

`friend class state_machine<player>;`

`typedef player p; // makes transition table cleaner`

`// Transition table`

`struct transition_table : mpl::vector11<`

`row < Stopped , play , Playing , &p::start_playback >,`

`row < Stopped , open_close , Open , &p::open_drawer >,`

`row < Open , open_close , Empty , &p::close_drawer >,`

`row < Empty , open_close , Open , &p::open_drawer >,`

`row < Empty , cd_detected , Stopped , &p::store_cd_info >,`

`row < Playing , stop , Stopped , &p::stop_playback >,`

`row < Playing , pause , Paused , &p::pause_playback >,`

`row < Playing , open_close , Open , &p::stop_and_open >,`

`row < Paused , play , Playing , &p::resume_playback >,`

`row < Paused , stop , Stopped , &p::stop_playback >,`

`row < Paused , open_close , Open , &p::stop_and_open >`

`> {};`

`// Replaces the default no-transition response.`

`template <class Event> int no_transition(int state, Event const& e) { std::cout << "no transition from state " << state << " on event " << typeid(e).name() << std::endl; return state; } };`

`void test() { player p; p.process_event(open_close());...}`

This example is the foundation for the idea driving MSM: a descriptive and expressive language based on a transition table with as little syntactic noise as possible, all this while offering as many features from the UML 2.0 standard as possible. MSM also offers several expressive state machine definition syntaxes with different trade-offs.

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