# States

A state is an abstract representation of a system (such as an application) at a specific point in time. As an application is interacted with, events cause it to change state. A finite state machine can be in only one of a finite number of states at any given time. The current state of a machine is represented by a State instance:

const lightMachine = Machine({
  id: 'light',
  initial: 'green',
  states: {
    green: {
      /* ... */
    }
    // ...
  }
});

console.log(lightMachine.initialState);
// State {
//   value: 'green',
//   actions: [],
//   context: undefined,
//   // ...
// }

console.log(lightMachine.transition('yellow', 'TIMER'));
// State {
//   value: { red: 'walk' },
//   actions: [],
//   context: undefined,
//   // ...
// }

# State Definition

A State object instance is JSON-serializable and has the following properties:

• value - the current state value (e.g., {red: 'walk'})
• context - the current context of this state
• event 4.2.1+ - the event object that triggered the transition to this state
• actions - an array of actions to be executed
• activities - a mapping of activities to true if the activity started, or false if stopped.
• history - the previous State instance
• meta - any static meta data defined on the meta property of the state node

It contains other properties such as historyValue, events, tree, and others that are generally not relevant and are used internally.

# State Methods and Getters

There are some helpful methods and getters that you can use for a better development experience:

# state.matches(parentStateValue)

This method determines whether the current state.value is a subset of the given parentStateValue; that is, if it "matches" the state value. For example, assuming the current state.value is { red: 'stop' }:

console.log(state.value);
// => { red: 'stop' }

console.log(state.matches('red'));
// => true

console.log(state.matches('red.stop'));
// => true

console.log(state.matches({ red: 'stop' }));
// => true

console.log(state.matches('green'));
// => false

# state.nextEvents

This getter specifies the next events that will cause a transition from the current state:

const { initialState } = lightMachine;

console.log(initialState.nextEvents);
// => ['TIMER', 'EMERGENCY']

This is useful in determining which next events can be taken, and representing these potential events in the UI (such as enabling/disabling certain buttons).

# state.changed

This getter specifies if this state has changed from the previous state. A state is considered "changed" if:

• Its value is not equal to its previous value, or:
• It has any new actions (side-effects) to execute.

An initial state (with no history) will return undefined.

const { initialState } = lightMachine;

console.log(initialState.changed);
// => undefined

const nextState = lightMachine.transition(initialState, 'TIMER');

console.log(nextState.changed);
// => true

const unchangedState = lightMachine.transition(nextState, 'UNKNOWN_EVENT');

console.log(unchangedState.changed);
// => false

# state.toStrings()

This method returns an array of strings that represent all of the state value paths. For example, assuming the current state.value is { red: 'stop' }:

console.log(state.value);
// => { red: 'stop' }

console.log(state.toStrings());
// => ['red', 'red.stop']

This is useful for representing the current state in string-based environments, such as in CSS classes or data-attributes.

# Persisting State

As mentioned, a State object can be persisted by serializing it to a string JSON format:

const jsonState = JSON.stringify(currentState);

// Example: persisting to localStorage
try {
  localStorage.setItem('app-state', jsonState);
} catch (e) {
  // unable to save to localStorage
}

State can be restored using the static State.create(...) method and resolved using the public machine.resolveState(...) method:

import { State, interpret } from 'xstate';
import { myMachine } from '../path/to/myMachine';

// Retrieving the state definition from localStorage
const stateDefinition = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('app-state'));

// Use State.create() to restore state from a plain object
const restoredState = State.create(stateDefinition);

// Use machine.resolveState() to resolve the state definition to a new State instance relative to the machine
const resolvedState = myMachine.resolveState(restoredStateDef);

You can then interpret the machine from this resolved state by passing the State into the .start(...) method of the interpreted service:

// ...

// This will start the service at the specified State
const service = interpret(myMachine).start(resolvedState);

This will also maintain and restore previous history states and ensures that .events and .nextEvents represent the correct values.

# State Meta Data

Meta data, which is static data that describes relevant properties of any state node, can be specified on the .meta property of the state node:

const fetchMachine = Machine({
  id: 'fetch',
  initial: 'idle',
  states: {
    idle: {
      on: { FETCH: 'loading' }
    },
    loading: {
      after: {
        3000: 'failure.timeout'
      },
      on: {
        RESOLVE: 'success',
        REJECT: 'failure',
        TIMEOUT: 'failure.timeout' // manual timeout
      },
      meta: {
        message: 'Loading...'
      }
    },
    success: {
      meta: {
        message: 'The request succeeded!'
      }
    },
    failure: {
      initial: 'rejection',
      states: {
        rejection: {
          meta: {
            message: 'The request failed.'
          }
        },
        timeout: {
          meta: {
            message: 'The request timed out.'
          }
        }
      },
      meta: {
        alert: 'Uh oh.'
      }
    }
  }
});

The current state of the machine collects the .meta data of all of the state nodes represented by the state value, and places them on an object where:

• The keys are the state node IDs
• The values are the state node .meta values

For instance, if the above machine is in the failure.timeout state (which is represented by two state nodes with IDs "failure" and "failure.timeout"), the .meta property will combine all .meta values and look like this:

const failureTimeoutState = fetchMachine.transition('loading', 'TIMEOUT');

console.log(failureTimeoutState.meta);
// => {
//   failure: {
//     alert: 'Uh oh.'
//   },
//   'failure.timeout': {
//     message: 'The request timed out.'
//   }
// }

function mergeMeta(meta) {
  return Object.keys(meta).reduce((acc, key) => {
    const value = meta[key];

    // Assuming each meta value is an object
    Object.assign(acc, value);

    return acc;
  }, {});
}

const failureTimeoutState = fetchMachine.transition('loading', 'TIMEOUT');

console.log(mergeMeta(meta));
// => {
//   alert: 'Uh oh.',
//   message: 'The request timed out.'
// }

# Notes

• You should seldom (never) have to create a State instance manually. Treat State as a read-only object that comes from machine.transition(...) or service.onTransition(...) only.
• To prevent memory leaks, state.history will not retain its history; that is, state.history.history === undefined. Otherwise, we're creating a huge linked list and reinventing blockchain, which I really don't care to do.
  • This behavior may be configurable in future versions.