First FSM - is my approach correct?

[Nick C]

Hi,

I would like to use Ragel to build a couple of FSMs based on the same
machine definition, one handling data validation, and another to
construct an interface (this would be the first time I use either
Ragel or FSMs). The data causing state transitions will probably be
passed in as key-value pairs. The validity of some keys depends on the
values set for others; so for instance, if a user chooses
"PublicTransport" as the value for the "FavouriteModeOfTransport" key,
he will be able to choose from "Bus", "Metro", "Tramway" as possible
values for the "FavouriteModeOfPublicTransport" key, but if he chooses
"Motorbike" as the value for "FavouriteModeOfTransport", he won't be
able to enter a value for "FavouriteModeOfPublicTransport" (validation
would fail in the data validation routine, and the field wouldn't be
displayed on the front end). There will be 40-50 different possible
fields, out of which around 15 or so would be dependent on the values
chosen for other fields. I can't guarantee the ordering of the keys,
although I can guarantee that the "FavouriteModeOfPublicTransport" key
would always be set after the "FavouriteModeOfTransport" key.

I was thinking as implementing this as a scanner, using conditions to
determine whether the field is valid or not (for instance, the
"FavouriteModeOfPublicTransport" field would only be valid if a
"FavouriteModeOfTransport" field has already been supplied with the
value set to "PublicTransport"). The disadvantage is that the full set
of state transitions isn't purely defined in Ragel, which potentially
makes the FSM hard to read (though if I'm correct defining the
possible states for 15 conditional fields in Ragel would require 15^15
different state definitions, which would probably be worse).

Do you think this approach would work? Am I missing a better way of
doing this?

Thanks,