XASM- An Extensible, Component-Based Abstract State Machines Language (original) (raw)

Next: Introduction XASM- Extensible, Component-Based ASMs

Matthias Anlauff

Xasm Open Source Project
www.xasm.org
ma@xasm.org

March 2000

Abstract:

The Abstract State Machine (ASM) [15] approach has already proven to be suitable for large-scale specifications of realistic systems [17,8,20,33]. Due to the fact that the ASM approach defines a notion of executing specifications, it provides a perfect basis for a language, which can be used as a specification language as well as a high-level programming language. However, in order to upgrade to a realistic programming language, such a language must - besides other features - add a modularization concept to the core ASM constructs in order to provide the possibility to structure large-scale ASM-formalizations and to flexibly define reusable specification units. In this paper, the language XASM, which stands for Extensible ASM, is presented. XASM realizes a component-based modularization concept based on the notion of external functions as defined in ASMs. This paper also briefly describes the support environment of XASM consisting of the XASM-compiler translating XASM programs to C source code, and the graphical debugging and animation tool.

• Introduction
• Overview of XASM
• The Basic Structure of XASM Programs: The XASM Component Model
  • The Use Modes of ``asm''-Constructs
  • Example
  • XASM Components
  • Gluing of XASM components
  • Informal Semantics of ``accesses'' and ``updates'' Declarations
    * Accessed and updated functions in Sub-Asms
    * Accessed and updated functions in External Functions
  • Access Modes of External Functions
  • Scoping
  • Returning Values From External Functions
• The XASM External Language Interface
  • External C-functions
  • Embedding XASM-programs in C-applications
• Non-Standard Language Constructs of XASM
  • Constructor Terms
  • Regular Expressions
  • The ``Once''-Rule
• Grammar Definitions in XASM
• The XASM Support Environment
  • The XASM-compiler and runtime system
  • The XASM graphical animation and debugging interface
  • The XASM-LATEX Package
• Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• About this document ...

Next: Introduction

Philipp Kutter 2002-03-18