Dan R. Ghica

Applying Game Semantics to Compositional Software Modeling and Verification

We describe a software model checking tool founded on game semantics, highlight the underpinning theoretical results and discuss several case studies. The tool is based on an interpretation algorithm defined compositionally on syntax and thus can also handle open programs. Moreover, the models it produces are equationally fully abstract. These features are essential in the modeling and verification of software components such as modules and turn out to lead to very compact models of programs.

Geometry of synthesis: a structured approach to VLSI design

We propose a new technique for hardware synthesis from higher-order functional languages with imperative features based on Reynoldss Syntactic Control of Interference. The restriction on contraction in the type system is useful for managing the thorny issue of sharing of physical circuits. We use a semantic model inspired by game semantics and the geometry of interaction, and express it directly as a certain class of digital circuits that form a cartesian, monoidal-closed category. A soundness result is given, which is also a correctness result for the compilation technique.

Reasoning about Idealized ALGOL Using Regular Languages

We explain how recent developments in game semantics can be applied to reasoning about equivalence of terms in a non-trivial fragment of Idealized ALGOL (IA) by expressing sets of complete plays as regular languages. Being derived directly from the fully abstract game semantics for IA, our method of reasoning inherits its desirable theoretical properties. The method is mathematically elementary and formal, which makes it uniquely suitable for automation. We show that reasoning can be carried out using only a meta-language of extended regular expressions, a language for which equivalence is formally decidable.

The regular-language semantics of second-order idealized ALGOL

We explain how recent developments in game semantics can be applied to reasoning about equivalence of terms in a non-trivial fragment of Idealized ALGOL (IA) by expressing sets of complete plays as regular languages. Being derived directly from the fully abstract game semantics for IA, our model inherits its good theoretical properties; in fact, for second-order IA taken as a stand-alone language the regular language model is fully abstract. The method is algorithmic and formal, which makes it suitable for automation. We show how reasoning is carried out using a meta-language of extended regular expressions, a language for which equivalence is decidable.

Angelic Semantics of Fine-Grained Concurrency

We introduce a game model for a procedural programming language extended with primitives for parallel composition and synchronization on binary semaphores. The model uses an interleaved version of Hyland-Ong-style games, where most of the original combinatorial constraints on positions are replaced with a simple principle naturally related to static process creation. The model is fully abstract for may-equivalence.

Syntactic control of concurrency

We consider a finitary procedural programming language (finite data-types, no recursion) extended with parallel composition and binary semaphores. Having first shown that may-equivalence of second-order open terms is undecidable we set out to find a framework in which decidability can be regained with minimum loss of expressivity. To that end we define an annotated type system that controls the number of concurrent threads created by terms and give a fully abstract game semantics for the notion of equivalence induced by typable terms and contexts. Finally, we show that the semantics of all typable terms, at any order and in the presence of iteration, has a regular-language representation and thus the restricted observational equivalence is decidable.

Data-abstraction refinement: a game semantic approach

This paper presents a semantic framework for data abstraction and refinement for verifying safety properties of open programs. The presentation is focused on an Algol-like programming language that incorporates data abstraction in its syntax. The fully abstract game semantics of the language is used for model-checking safety properties, and an interaction-sequence-based semantics is used for interpreting potentially spurious counterexamples and computing refined abstractions for the next iteration.

Applications of Game Semantics: From Program Analysis to Hardware Synthesis

After informally reviewing the main concepts from game semantics and placing the development of the field in a historical context we examine its main applications. We focus in particular on finite state model checking, higher order model checking and more recent developments in hardware design.

Geometry of synthesis iv: compiling affine recursion into static hardware

Abramskys Geometry of Interaction interpretation (GoI) is a logical-directed way to reconcile the process and functional views of computation, and can lead to a dataflow-style semantics of programming languages that is both operational (i.e. effective) and denotational (i.e. inductive on the language syntax). The key idea of Ghicas Geometry of Synthesis (GoS) approach is that for certain programming languages (namely Reynoldss affine Syntactic Control of Interference - SCI) the GoI processes-like interpretation of the language can be given a finitary representation, for both internal state and tokens. A physical realisation of this representation becomes a semantics-directed compiler for SCI into hardware. In this paper we examine the issue of compiling affine recursive programs into hardware using the GoS method. We give syntax and compilation techniques for unfolding recursive computation in space or in time and we illustrate it with simple benchmark-style examples. We examine the performance of the benchmarks against conventional CPU-based execution models.

Regular-Language Semantics for a Call-by-Value Programming Language

Abstract We explain how game semantics can be used to reason about term equivalence in a finitary imperative first order language with arrays. For this language, the game-semantic interpretation of types and terms is fully characterized by their sets of complete plays. Because these sets are regular over the alphabet of moves, they are representable by (extended) regular expressions. The formal apparatus of game semantics is greatly simplified but the good theoretical properties of the model are preserved. The principal advantage of this approach is that it is mathematically elementary, while fully formalized. Since language equivalence for regular languages is decidable, this method of proving term equivalence is suitable for automation.