state machine and a global variable

[tuom.larsen at gmail.com]

Dear list,
I'm writing very simple state machine library, like this:



_state = None

def set_state(state):
    global _state
    _state = state

def get_state():
    print _surface



but I hate to use global variable. So, please, is there a better way
of doing this? All I want is that a user has to type as little as
possible, like:

from state_machine import *
set_state(3)
get_state()

I.e., nothing like:
import state_machine
my_machine = state_machine.new_machine()
my_machine.set_state(3)
my_machine.get_state()

Thanks, in advance!