A Rational Deconstruction of Landin’s SECD Machine

Danvy, Olivier

doi:10.1007/11431664_4

Cited by 38 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…We follow the order of the first deconstruction [30], though with a twist: in the middle of the derivation, we abandon the stack-threading, callee-save features of the SECD machine, which are non-standard, for the more familiar stackless, caller-save features of traditional definitional interpreters [50,76,86,94]. (These points are reviewed in Appendix.…”

Section: Deconstruction Of the Secd Machine With The J Operatormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As identified in the first rational deconstruction [30], the resulting program is an interpreter in continuation-passing style (CPS). 2 This interpreter threads a data stack and uses a callee-save convention to process subterms.…”

Section: Run : S * E * C * D -> Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The path we are taking seems reasonably pedagogical-in particular, the departure from threading a data stack and managing the environment in a callee-save way. Each step is reversible: one can CPS-transform and defunctionalize an evaluator and (re)construct an abstract machine [3,4,6,7,13,16,30,31]. …”

Section: Run : S * E * C * D -> Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As in the first rational deconstruction [30], we factor run into four mutually recursive functions, each with one induction variable. In this disentangled definition, run c dispatches to the three other transition functions, which all dispatch back to run c:…”

Section: A Disentangled Specificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our angle here is derivational; it follows the 'rational deconstruction' of the SECD machine into a compositional evaluation function presented by Danvy at IFL'04 [30]. This deconstruction laid the ground for a functional correspondence between evaluators and abstract machines [3,4,6,7,13,16,30,31]. Our goal here is to show that this functional correspondence also applies to the SECD machine with the J operator, which too can be deconstructed into a compositional evaluation function.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Rational Deconstruction of Landin's J Operator

Danvy¹,

Millikin²

2006

BRICS

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Landin's J operator was the first control operator for functional languages. It was specified with an extension of the SECD machine, which was the first abstract machine for functional languages. We present a family of compositional evaluation functions corresponding to this extension of the SECD machine, using a series of elementary transformations (transformation into continuation-passing style (CPS) and defunctionalization, chiefly) and their left inverses (transformation into direct style and refunctionalization). To this end, we modernize the SECD machine into a bisimilar one that operates in lock step with the original one but that (1) does not use a data stack and (2) uses the caller-save rather than the callee-save convention for environments. We then characterize the J operator in terms of CPS and in terms of delimited-control operators in the CPS hierarchy. As a byproduct, we also present a reduction semantics for applicative expressions with the J operator, based on Curien's original calculus of explicit substitutions. This reduction semantics mechanically corresponds to the modernized version of the SECD machine and to the best of our knowledge, it provides the first syntactic theory of applicative expressions with the J operator.The present work is concluded by a motivated wish to see Landin's name added to the list of co-discoverers of continuations. Methodologically, however, it mainly illustrates the value of Reynolds's defunctionalization and of refunctionalization as well as the expressive power of the CPS hierarchy (a) to account for the first control operator and the first abstract machine for functional languages and (b) to connect them to their successors.(A preliminary version appears in the proceedings of IFL 2005 [38].)

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Section: Deconstruction Of the Secd Machine With The J Operatormentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Run : S * E * C * D -> Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Run : S * E * C * D -> Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Disentangled Specificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Rational Deconstruction of Landin's J Operator

Danvy¹,

Millikin²

2006

BRICS

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Refunctionalization at Work

Danvy

2006

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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We present the left inverse of Reynolds's defunctionalization and we show its relevance to programming and to programming languages. We propose two methods to transform a program that is almost in defunctionalized form into one that is actually in defunctionalized form, and we illustrate them with a recognizer for Dyck words and with Dijkstra's shunting-yard algorithm.Revised version of BRICS RS-07-7. * This tutorial documents an invited talk at MPC '06 [26]. † IT-parken,

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A Rational Deconstruction of Landin’s J Operator

Danvy

Millikin

2006

Implementation and Application of Functional Languages

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Landin's J operator was the first control operator for functional languages, and was specified with an extension of the SECD machine. Through a series of meaning-preserving transformations (transformation into continuation-passing style (CPS) and defunctionalization) and their left inverses (transformation into direct style and refunctionalization), we present a compositional evaluation function corresponding to this extension of the SECD machine. We then characterize the J operator in terms of CPS and in terms of delimited-control operators in the CPS hierarchy. Finally, we present a motivated wish to see Landin's name added to the list of co-discoverers of continuations. * Extended version of an article

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A Rational Deconstruction of Landin’s SECD Machine

Cited by 38 publications

References 30 publications

A Rational Deconstruction of Landin's J Operator

A Rational Deconstruction of Landin's J Operator

Refunctionalization at Work

A Rational Deconstruction of Landin’s J Operator

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