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State (computer science)


In information technology and computer science, a is called stateful if the way in which it may interact internally or with its environment depends on the condition it is in at a given instant in time; such a condition is called a state of the system.

The set of states a system can be in is known as its state space. In a discrete system, the state space is countable and often finite, and the system's internal behaviour and/or interaction with its environment consist of separately occurring individual actions or events, such as accepting input or producing output, that may or may not cause the system to change its state. Examples of such systems are digital logic circuits and components, automata in automata theory and formal language theory, computer programs, and computers. The output of a digital circuit or computer program at any time is completely determined by its current inputs and its state.

Digital logic circuits can be divided into two types: combinational logic, whose output signals are dependent only on its present input signals, and sequential logic, whose outputs are a function of both the current inputs and the past history of inputs. In sequential logic, information from past inputs is stored in electronic memory elements, such as flip-flops and latches. The stored contents of these memory elements, at a given point in time, is collectively referred to as the circuit's state and contains all the information about the past to which the circuit has access.


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