A state with history is simply written as a state name followed by an [HS] or [HS*] property. Above this, there must be a means for a transition to choose whether the destination is a state itself or the history of the state. This is accomplished by an additional [HS] attribute after the TRANSITION descriptor. A transition with [HS] after its TRANSITION descriptor goes to the (normal or deep) history of its destination state ; a transition without this attribute goes to or the default substates of .
As an example, the model in Figure 4.9 is textually written in Table 4.8. The transitions reacting to events e1 and e2 have an [HS] attribute, so they go to the histories of their states. Since states A.C.D and A.C.E do not have history, adding [HS] attribute to the transitions reacting to e3 and e4 does not change the behavior of those transitions.