State

State is non-nodal content like file-handles, text and object or function references. Every node exhibits such a state which is its encapsulation of the concept it represents in terms of the local runtime environment. If the node has no representation in terms of the local environment, then a request of its state returns the local representation of void.

Note that, a node's state is not an association, but rather a method of the actual Node definition. This is because the associations are purely nodal and can only exist as nodeRef:nodeRef pairs. We can't put non-nodal content directly into a Nodal Space, but we can "attach" it to nodes.