Towards Compatible and Interderivable Semantic Specifications for the Scheme Programming Language, Part I: Denotational Semantics, Natural Semantics, and Abstract Machines

Danvy, Olivier

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-04164-8_9

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Eval/apply machines are also known as 'eval/continue' machines (see Danvy [5] for a discussion), since they have a strong connection with continuations and evaluation contexts [3,4,7,14], which makes them modular and more amenable for reasoning. That is why they are attractive underlying evaluation models for modular and formally verified compilation techniques.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Push/Enter to Eval/Apply by Program Transformation

Piróg

Gibbons

2016

Electron. Proc. Theor. Comput. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Push/enter and eval/apply are two calling conventions used in implementations of functional languages. In this paper, we explore the following observation: when considering functions with multiple arguments, the stack under the push/enter and eval/apply conventions behaves similarly to two particular implementations of the list datatype: the regular cons-list and a form of lists with lazy concatenation respectively. Along the lines of Danvy et al.'s functional correspondence between definitional interpreters and abstract machines, we use this observation to transform an abstract machine that implements push/enter into an abstract machine that implements eval/apply. We show that our method is flexible enough to transform the push/enter Spineless Tagless G-machine (which is the semantic core of the GHC Haskell compiler) into its eval/apply variant.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Push/Enter to Eval/Apply by Program Transformation

Piróg

Gibbons

2016

Electron. Proc. Theor. Comput. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A number of independently designed small-step semantic artifacts can be obtained by closure-converting, CPStransforming, and then defunctionalizing their big-step counterparts, and vice versa by refunctionalizing [Danvy and Millikin 2009]. Such semantic artifacts include the SECD machine [Ager et al 2003;Danvy 2004;Danvy and Millikin 2008b], the CEK machine [Ager et al 2003], the CLS machine [Ager et al 2003], Categorical Abstract Machines [Ager et al 2003], lazy abstract machines [Ager et al 2004], monadic evaluators [Ager et al 2005, as well as languages with richer constructs [Biernacka and Danvy 2009;Danvy 2008Danvy , 2009, etc.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the concrete world, the relationships between reduction semantics, abstract machines, definitional interpreters, and monadic interpreters have been intensively studied by Danvy and his collaborators [Ager et al 2003, 2004Biernacka and Danvy 2009;Danvy 2006bDanvy , 2008Danvy , 2009Nielsen 2001, 2004]. These concrete abstract machines implement structural operational semantics in continuation-passing style, where the reduction contexts are defunctionalized continuations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refunctionalization of abstract abstract machines: bridging the gap between abstract abstract machines and abstract definitional interpreters (functional pearl)

Wei

Decker

Rompf

2018

Proc. ACM Program. Lang.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

machines is a systematic methodology for constructing sound static analyses for higherorder languages, by deriving small-step abstract abstract machines (AAMs) that perform abstract interpretation from abstract machines that perform concrete evaluation. Darais et al. apply the same underlying idea to monadic definitional interpreters, and obtain monadic abstract definitional interpreters (ADIs) that perform abstract interpretation in big-step style using monads. Yet, the relation between small-step abstract abstract machines and big-step abstract definitional interpreters is not well studied. In this paper, we explain their functional correspondence and demonstrate how to systematically transform small-step abstract abstract machines into big-step abstract definitional interpreters. Building on known semantic interderivation techniques from the concrete evaluation setting, the transformations include linearization, lightweight fusion, disentanglement, refunctionalization, and the left inverse of the CPS transform. Linearization expresses nondeterministic choice through first-order data types, after which refunctionalization transforms the first-order data types that represent continuations into higher-order functions. The refunctionalized AAM is an abstract interpreter written in continuation-passing style (CPS) with two layers of continuations, which can be converted back to direct style with delimited control operators. Based on the known correspondence between delimited control and monads, we demonstrate that the explicit use of monads in abstract definitional interpreters is optional. All transformations properly handle the collecting semantics and nondeterminism of abstract interpretation. Remarkably, we reveal how precise call/return matching in control-flow analysis can be obtained by refunctionalizing a small-step abstract abstract machine with proper caching.

show abstract

“…The syntactic correspondence has been applied to a large number of small-step semantics [5,7,8,11,14,30,59,74,89,90,112,128,135], in some cases to derive known abstract machines, and in some cases to derive new ones. Similarly, the functional correspondence has been applied to a large number of big-step semantics [1,15,30,33,72,74,83,84,89,96,101,135], in some cases to derive known abstract machines, and in some cases to derive new ones.…”

Section: Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These numerous cases range from the varieties of λ-calculus [2,4] to the Algorithmic Language Scheme [33].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Computational Small Steps and Big Steps: Refocusing for Outermost Reduction

Johannsen

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We study the relationship between small-step semantics, big-step semantics and abstract machines, for programming languages that employ an outermost reduction strategy, i.e., languages where reductions near the root of the abstract syntax tree are performed before reductions near the leaves. In particular, we investigate how Biernacka and Danvy's syntactic correspondence and Reynolds's functional correspondence can be applied to inter-derive semantic specifications for such languages.The main contribution of this dissertation is three-fold: First, we identify that backward overlapping reduction rules in the small-step semantics cause the refocusing step of the syntactic correspondence to be inapplicable. Second, we propose two solutions to overcome this in-applicability: backtracking and rule generalization. Third, we show how these solutions affect the other transformations of the two correspondences.Other contributions include the application of the syntactic and functional correspondences to Boolean normalization. In particular, we show how to systematically derive a spectrum of normalization functions for negational and conjunctive normalization. ResuméVi studerer sammenhaengen mellem small-step semantikker, big-step semantikker og abstrakte maskiner, for programmeringssprog, der bruger yderste reduktionsstrategier, dvs. sprog, hvor reduktioner taet på roden af det abstrakte syntaks-trae bliver udført før reduktioner naer bladene. Specielt undersøger vi, hvordan Biernacka og Danvys syntaktiske korrespondence og Reynolds' funktionelle korrespondence kan anvendes til at udlede semantiske specifikationer fra hinanden for sådanne sprog.Det primaere resultat i denne afhandling består af tre dele: Først observerer vi, at reduktionsregler med bagudrettede overlap i small-step semantikker gør, at refokuserings-skridtet i den syntaktiske korrespondence ikke kan anvendes. Derefter fremsaetter vi to løsninger til at overvinde denne manglende anvendelighed: tilbagevenden og regel-generalisering. Til sidst viser vi, hvordan disse løsninger påvirker de øvrige transformationer i de to korrespondencer.De øvrige resultater inkluderer anvendelsen af de syntaktiske og funktionelle korrespondencer til Boolesk normalisering. Specielt viser vi, hvordan man systematisk kan udlede et spektrum af normaliseringsfunktioner for negationel og konjunktiv normalisering.iii

show abstract

Towards Compatible and Interderivable Semantic Specifications for the Scheme Programming Language, Part I: Denotational Semantics, Natural Semantics, and Abstract Machines

Cited by 6 publications

References 46 publications

From Push/Enter to Eval/Apply by Program Transformation

From Push/Enter to Eval/Apply by Program Transformation

Refunctionalization of abstract abstract machines: bridging the gap between abstract abstract machines and abstract definitional interpreters (functional pearl)

On Computational Small Steps and Big Steps: Refocusing for Outermost Reduction

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About