Methods of implementing state machines using embedded processors. The designer specifies the logical footprint of the state machine in a formalism that can be transformed into hardware. This approach decouples the designer from the design, so that a state machine can be moved between embedded processors (e.g., between a hard processor and a soft processor), without any modifications to the code. One or more source-to-source transformations can be performed to improve the run-time performance of the state machine. These transformations can include the insertion of one or more jump addresses directly into the code, bypassing the standard lookup table approach for memory addressing, and consequently speeding up the execution of the code. The jump addresses can include, for example, a jump address for the start of each state machine, and/or a jump address for each state within the state machines.