A statesmanlike state machine library for Ruby 1.9.3 and up.
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Statesman is an opinionated state machine library designed to provide a robust audit trail and data integrity. It decouples the state machine logic from the underlying model and allows for easy composition with one or more model classes.
As such, the design of statesman is a little different from other state machine libraries:
- State behaviour is defined in a separate, "state machine" class, rather than added directly onto a model. State machines are then instantiated with the model to which they should apply.
- State transitions are also modelled as a class, which can optionally be persisted to the database for a full audit history. This audit history can include JSON metadata set during a transition.
- Database indicies are used to offer database-level transaction duplication protection.
TL;DR Usage
#######################
# State Machine Class #
#######################
class OrderStateMachine
include Statesman::Machine
state :pending, initial: true
state :checking_out
state :purchased
state :shipped
state :cancelled
state :failed
state :refunded
transition from: :pending, to: [:checking_out, :cancelled]
transition from: :checking_out, to: [:purchased, :cancelled]
transition from: :purchased, to: [:shipped, :failed]
transition from: :shipped, to: :refunded
guard_transition(to: :checking_out) do |order|
order.products_in_stock?
end
before_transition(from: :checking_out, to: :cancelled) do |order, transition|
order.reallocate_stock
end
before_transition(to: :purchased) do |order, transition|
PaymentService.new(order).submit
end
after_transition(to: :purchased) do |order, transition|
MailerService.order_confirmation(order).deliver
end
end
##############
# Your Model #
##############
class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
include Statesman::Adapters::ActiveRecordQueries
has_many :order_transitions, autosave: false
def state_machine
@state_machine ||= OrderStateMachine.new(self, transition_class: OrderTransition)
end
private
def self.transition_class
OrderTransition
end
def self.initial_state
:pending
end
end
####################
# Transition Model #
####################
class OrderTransition < ActiveRecord::Base
include Statesman::Adapters::ActiveRecordTransition
belongs_to :order, inverse_of: :order_transitions
end
########################
# Example method calls #
########################
Order.first.state_machine.current_state # => "pending"
Order.first.state_machine.allowed_transitions # => ["checking_out", "cancelled"]
Order.first.state_machine.can_transition_to?(:cancelled) # => true/false
Order.first.state_machine.transition_to(:cancelled, optional: :metadata) # => true/false
Order.first.state_machine.transition_to!(:cancelled) # => true/exception
Order.in_state(:cancelled) # => [#<Order id: "123">]
Order.not_in_state(:checking_out) # => [#<Order id: "123">]
Persistence
By default Statesman stores transition history in memory only. It can be persisted by configuring Statesman to use a different adapter. For example, ActiveRecord within Rails:
config/initializers/statesman.rb
:
Statesman.configure do
storage_adapter(Statesman::Adapters::ActiveRecord)
end
Generate the transition model:
$ rails g statesman:active_record_transition Order OrderTransition
And add an association from the parent model:
app/models/order.rb
:
class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :transitions, class_name: "OrderTransition", autosave: false
# Initialize the state machine
def state_machine
@state_machine ||= OrderStateMachine.new(self, transition_class: OrderTransition,
association_name: :transitions)
end
# Optionally delegate some methods
delegate :can_transition_to?, :transition_to!, :transition_to, :current_state,
to: :state_machine
end
Using PostgreSQL JSON column
By default, Statesman uses serialize
to store the metadata in JSON format.
It is also possible to use the PostgreSQL JSON column if you are using Rails 4. To do that
-
Change
metadata
column type in the transition model migration tojson
# Before t.text :metadata, default: "{}" # After t.json :metadata, default: "{}"
-
Remove
include Statesman::Adapters::ActiveRecordTransition
statement from your transition model
Configuration
storage_adapter
Statesman.configure do
storage_adapter(Statesman::Adapters::ActiveRecord)
# ...or
storage_adapter(Statesman::Adapters::Mongoid)
end
Statesman defaults to storing transitions in memory. If you're using rails, you can instead configure it to persist transitions to the database by using the ActiveRecord or Mongoid adapter.
Statesman will fallback to memory unless you specify a transition_class when instantiating your state machine. This allows you to only persist transitions on certain state machines in your app.
Class methods
Machine.state
Machine.state(:some_state, initial: true)
Machine.state(:another_state)
Define a new state and optionally mark as the initial state.
Machine.transition
Machine.transition(from: :some_state, to: :another_state)
Define a transition rule. Both method parameters are required, to
can also be
an array of states (.transition(from: :some_state, to: [:another_state, :some_other_state])
).
Machine.guard_transition
Machine.guard_transition(from: :some_state, to: :another_state) do |object|
object.some_boolean?
end
Define a guard. to
and from
parameters are optional, a nil parameter means
guard all transitions. The passed block should evaluate to a boolean and must
be idempotent as it could be called many times.
Machine.before_transition
Machine.before_transition(from: :some_state, to: :another_state) do |object|
object.side_effect
end
Define a callback to run before a transition. to
and from
parameters are
optional, a nil parameter means run before all transitions. This callback can
have side-effects as it will only be run once immediately before the transition.
Machine.after_transition
Machine.after_transition(from: :some_state, to: :another_state) do |object, transition|
object.side_effect
end
Define a callback to run after a successful transition. to
and from
parameters are optional, a nil parameter means run after all transitions. The
model object and transition object are passed as arguments to the callback.
This callback can have side-effects as it will only be run once immediately
after the transition.
If you specify after_commit: true
, the callback will be executed once the
transition has been committed to the database.
Machine.new
my_machine = Machine.new(my_model, transition_class: MyTransitionModel)
Initialize a new state machine instance. my_model
is required. If using the
ActiveRecord adapter my_model
should have a has_many
association with
MyTransitionModel
.
Machine.retry_conflicts
Machine.retry_conflicts { instance.transition_to(:new_state) }
Automatically retry the given block if a TransitionConflictError
is raised.
If you know you want to retry a transition if it fails due to a race condition
call it from within this block. Takes an (optional) argument for the maximum
number of retry attempts (defaults to 1).
Instance methods
Machine#current_state
Returns the current state based on existing transition objects.
Machine#in_state?(:state_1, :state_2, ...)
Returns true if the machine is in any of the given states.
Machine#history
Returns a sorted array of all transition objects.
Machine#last_transition
Returns the most recent transition object.
Machine#allowed_transitions
Returns an array of states you can transition_to
from current state.
Machine#can_transition_to?(:state)
Returns true if the current state can transition to the passed state and all applicable guards pass.
Machine#transition_to!(:state)
Transition to the passed state, returning true
on success. Raises
Statesman::GuardFailedError
or Statesman::TransitionFailedError
on failure.
Machine#transition_to(:state)
Transition to the passed state, returning true
on success. Swallows all
Statesman exceptions and returns false on failure. (NB. if your guard or
callback code throws an exception, it will not be caught.)
Model scopes
A mixin is provided for the ActiveRecord adapter which adds scopes to easily
find all models currently in (or not in) a given state. Include it into your
model and define transition_class
and initial_state
class methods:
class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
include Statesman::Adapters::ActiveRecordQueries
private
def self.transition_class
OrderTransition
end
def self.initial_state
OrderStateMachine.initial_state
end
end
If the transition class-name differs from the association name, you will also
need to define a corresponding transition_name
class method:
class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :transitions, class_name: "OrderTransition", autosave: false
private
def self.transition_name
:transitions
end
def self.transition_class
OrderTransition
end
def self.initial_state
OrderStateMachine.initial_state
end
end
Model.in_state(:state_1, :state_2, etc)
Returns all models currently in any of the supplied states.
Model.not_in_state(:state_1, :state_2, etc)
Returns all models not currently in any of the supplied states.
Frequently Asked Questions
Storing the state on the model object
If you wish to store the model state on the model directly, you can keep it up
to date using an after_transition
hook:
after_transition do |model, transition|
model.state = transition.to_state
model.save!
end
You could also use a calculated column or view in your database.
Accessing metadata from the last transition
Given a field foo
that was stored in the metadata, you can access it like so:
model_instance.last_transition.metadata["foo"]
Upgrading from 1.1 to 1.2
Statesman 1.2.0 introduced a new most_recent
column on the transition model,
which is used to speed up queries.
The change is entirely backwards compatible, but if you'd like the performance
improvements just follow
this guide
to add a most_recent
column to an existing model.
Testing Statesman Implementations
This answer was abstracted from this issue.
At GoCardless we focus on testing that:
- guards correctly prevent / allow transitions
- callbacks execute when expected and perform the expected actions
Testing Guards
Guards can be tested by asserting that transition_to!
does or does not raise a Statesman::GuardFailedError
:
describe "guards" do
it "cannot transition from state foo to state bar" do
expect { some_model.transition_to!(:bar) }.to raise_error(Statesman::GuardFailedError)
end
it "can transition from state foo to state baz" do
expect { some_model.transition_to!(:baz) }.to_not raise_error
end
end
Testing Callbacks
Callbacks are tested by asserting that the action they perform occurs:
describe "some callback" do
it "adds one to the count property on the model" do
expect { some_model.transition_to!(:some_state) }.
to change { some_model.reload.count }.
by(1)
end
end
GoCardless