Programming a state controller for page transitions

Hi folks A bit OT - more a general programming issue than PHP - but here goes: I am trying to design a state controller to manage multi-page logical transactions, such as, say, a three page checkout process, or a database entry system. The idea is that I store all the states, transitions and actions in some kind of table, and then run this data through a generic state rule interpreter to determine the next page to generate. It will also handle back-buttons, page-refreshes and out-of-sequence requests. But I'm finding it hard to find material on this on the web. The best source I have identified is http://www.uidesign.net/1999/papers/webmvc_part1.html . This is a great resource, but it is based on a very abstract OOP approach, while I am using procedural/relational. My main problem is working out how to encapsulate all the rules in a persistent table. After that, designing the rule processor should be fairly straightforward. Can anyone point me at any sources about this, or perhaps share their own approaches? Thanks Geoff Caplan Advantae Ltd