A Concrete Syntax Derived From the Abstract State Machine Metamodel

In this paper we present a language for Abstract State Machine specifications. The ASM metamodel (AsmM), introduced in [18], is a MOF-compliant metamodel representing in an abstract and visual way the concepts and constructs of the ASMs formalism as described in [3]. Here we present a concrete syntax (AsmM-CS), an EBNF (extended Backus-Naur Form) grammar derived from the AsmM as a textual notation to be used by modelers to effectively write ASM models complaint with AsmM. We also give an overview of the technique applied to derive AsmM-CS from AsmM, showing how the OMG metamodel-based approach can be exploited to derive languages from metamodels.