State Machine Memory Management Problems

Question

My state machine handles requests and returns the next state. In the below simplification, I've got two states here, CreatedState and RunningState. Running state is the end state, and just returns itself. Running state has state (as in memebers) that need to be preseved, I'll use the integer count to represent them.

std::unique_pointer<StateBase> handle();

// Caller
void Call(){
    _currentState = _currentState->handle();
}

// Created State Implementation
std::unique_pointer<StateBase> CreatedState::handle(){
    return std::make_unique<RunningState>();
}

// Running State Implementation (option 1: create a new one)
std::unique_pointer<StateBase> RunningState::handle(){
    return std::make_unique<RunningState>(RunningState(int count));
}

The problem here is that creating a new RunningState with a memento/all-of-the-private-members of the old RunningState is messy and probably inefficient(?).

In a managed language I might just return this, but if I did something like that: return std::make_unique<RunningState>(&this) I would have two pointers to the same object and the destruction of the lhs _currentState in the Call() would leave me with nothing to point at.

How can I cleanly and efficiently leave _currentState unchanged?

The std::enable_shared_from_this base class was originally designed to solve problems similar to this. However, I have yet to see practical use of it, so I can't comment on its efficacy. — rwong
– rwong, Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 9:28
std::make_unique<...>(this) does not merely point to the same object. It forwards the arguments to the constructor of the class, effectively copy-constructing another instance, taking your argument instance as the source of data. If you do not define any constructors for your class, C++ will implicitly define one for you. — rwong
– rwong, Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 9:41
@rwong Good point about the shared, might be the way to go. I do sort of feel that with reference counting pointers I'll be paying for a lot I don't use as well as allowing for slopper ownership by code calling my state machine (maybe that's a bad thing?). I see that my (this) C++ code is wrong, and probably still is, my State classes contain unique pointers and cannot be copied anyway. — Nathan
– Nathan, Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 10:24
It seems you should just treat your design as usual polymorphism (or, non-polymorphism, if there's nothing in common), since it is unclear to me why you need to advance to next-state from a RunningState. In other words, the CreatedState has a reason to advance to next-state which is RunningState, but RunningState doesn't. — rwong
– rwong, Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 10:29
@rwong I don't think it's necessarily wrong to have a state machine with an end state. I understand how my simplified example doesn't really do that argument justice, however. I think I'll probably seek some more feedback from SO.CR about that when I'm done. Thanks for your help rwong. — Nathan
– Nathan, Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 12:52

Nathan · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-28 09:22:49Z

My potential solution:

Pass the pointer as a reference. Alter it in the handle as needed. I'm not a big fan of mutating parameters in general, but I think this might be the way to go?

#include <iostream>
#include <memory>

void handle2(std::unique_ptr<int>& current, bool changePtr)
{
    *current = *current + 5 ;
    if(changePtr){
    auto foo = std::make_unique<int>(200);
    (*foo)++;
    current = std::move(foo); //destruction of current only happens if I want to change state
    }
}

int main()
{
    auto currentState = std::make_unique<int>(50);

    handle2(currentState, false);
    std::cout << *currentState << std::endl; // 55
    // Guard against nullptr in caller      

    handle2(currentState, true);  
    std::cout << *currentState << std::endl; // 201

    handle2(currentState, false);    
    std::cout << *currentState << std::endl; // 206
}

Incidently, here is the state machine I was designing: https://github.com/mikeyjkmo/ableton-freetime-looper

Stack Exchange Network

State Machine Memory Management Problems

1 Answer 1

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

State Machine Memory Management Problems

1 Answer 1

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related

Hot Network Questions