Thread: FSM(Finite state machine) help

Well you need to understand the concept, which means looking at and understanding state graphs.

As to how to code them, that's up to you. There are many ways to represent state in C++ you can get really fancy and write functions that returns function pointers, use polymorphic objects that return the next state, or just have an integer represent the state, and use a big switch statement inside a loop. There are pros and cons to those approaches, and to others.

VHDL procedural state machines are essentially a big switch (or a bunch of if elsif). However, there there is always a performance priority and a compiler can be relied on to optimize the logic. It's not always the same situation in C++, though switches are relatively fast, if that's your benchmark.

No. As you say there are plenty of web sources that explain the concept of an FSM. There is no universally preferred way to implement them in C++. There are tutorials on switches and function pointers if you can determine which of those is appropriate to a particular situation. How many states you have and how similar those states are can help determine that, since usually you want to minimize code repetition.

Understanding FSMs and programming them are separate problems. You should understand FSMs and understand C++. Then put the two together.

The vhdl tutorials aren't useless either; you can treat vhdl like pseudocode. A vhdl process isn't very different from a procedural code block in C++. Although a massive if elsif chain is generally not a good solution in C++.