Generating Functional Implementations of Finite State Automata in C# 3.0

Finite state automata (FSA) implementations are widely used in IT due to their rich application possibilities, flexibility, and their direct relationship with common goals set by regular business applications. Workflow-based programming has opened up a new exciting application area: workflows governed by FSA. The field is gaining more and more attention, the .NET 3.0 platform contains an engine called Workflow Foundation dedicated to managing workflows. However, due to the advantageous properties of FSA, it is often desirable to build applications around FSA implementations in simpler cases as well. In this paper an automata generator framework will be presented that makes it possible to use automata whenever possible. What makes this framework highly applicable and very flexible is the fact that the generation process might rely on not only static, but also dynamic information, so it can be performed during runtime as well. From the technical point of view, the interesting part is that the generated implementation is based on lambda expressions, the new functional enhancements of the C# 3.0 language.