A Metamodel-based Language and a Simulation Engine for Abstract State Machines

In this paper, we present a concrete textual notation, called asmetal, and a general-purpose simulation engine, called asmetas, for abstract state machine (asm) specifications. they have been developed as part of the asmeta (asms metamodelling) toolset, which is a set of tools for asms based on the metamodelling approach of the model-driven engineering. we briefly present the asmeta framework, and we discuss how the language and the simulator have been developed exploiting the advantages offered by the metamodelling approach. we introduce the language asmetal used to write asm specifications, and we provide the asmetal encoding of asm specifications of increasing complexity. we explain the asmetas architecture, its kernel engine, and how the simulator works within the asmeta tool set. we discuss the features currently supported by the simulator and how it has been validated.