Keiko Nakata

Trace-Based Coinductive Operational Semantics for While

We present four coinductive operational semantics for the While language accounting for both terminating and non-terminating program runs: big-step and small-step relational semantics and big-step and small-step functional semantics. The semantics employ traces (possibly infinite sequences of states) to record the states that program runs go through. The relational semantics relate statement-state pairs to traces, whereas the functional semantics return traces for statement-state pairs. All four semantics are equivalent. We formalize the semantics and their equivalence proofs in the constructive setting of Coq.

Resumptions, Weak Bisimilarity and Big-Step Semantics for While with Interactive I/O: An Exercise in Mixed Induction-Coinduction

We look at the operational semantics of languages with interactive I/O through the glasses of constructive type theory. Following on from our earlier work on coinductive trace-based semantics for While [17], we define several big-step semantics for Whil e with interactive I/O, based on resumptions and termination-sensitive weak bisimilarity. These require nesting inductive definitions in coinductive definitions, which is interesting both mathe matically and from the point-of-view of implementation in a proof assistant. After first defining a basic semantics of statements in terms o f resumptions with explicit internal actions (delays), we introduce a semantics in terms of delay-free resumptions that essentially removes finite sequences of delays on the fly from those resumptions th at are responsive. Finally, we also look at a semantics in terms of delay-free resumptions supplemented with a silent divergence option. This semantics hinges on decisions between convergence and divergence and is only equivalent to the basic one classically. We have fully formalized our development in Coq.

Small-step and big-step semantics for call-by-need

We present natural semantics for acyclic as well as cyclic call-by-need lambda calculi, which are proved equivalent to the reduction semantics given by Ariola and Felleisen (J. Funct. Program., vol. 7, no. 3, 1997). The natural semantics are big-step and use global heaps, where evaluation is suspended and memorized. The reduction semantics are small-step, and evaluation is suspended and memorized locally in let-bindings. Thus two styles of formalization describe the call-by-need strategy from different angles. The natural semantics for the acyclic calculus is revised from the previous presentation by Maraist et al. (J. Funct. Program., vol. 8, no. 3, 1998), and its adequacy is ascribed to its correspondence with the reduction semantics, which has been proved equivalent to call-by-name by Ariola and Felleisen. The natural semantics for the cyclic calculus is inspired by that of Launchbury (1993) and Sestoft (1997), and we state its adequacy using a denotational semantics in the style of Launchbury; adequacy of the reduction semantics for the cyclic calculus is in turn ascribed to its correspondence with the natural semantics.

A hoare logic for the coinductive trace-based big-step semantics of while

In search for a foundational framework for reasoning about observable behavior of programs that may not terminate, we have previously devised a trace-based big-step semantics for While. In this semantics, both traces and evaluation (relating initial states of program runs to traces they produce) are defined coinductively. On terminating runs, it agrees with the standard inductive state-based semantics. Here we present a Hoare logic counterpart of our coinductive trace-based semantics and prove it sound and complete. Our logic subsumes both the partial correctness Hoare logic and the total correctness Hoare logic: they are embeddable. Since we work with a constructive underlying logic, the range of expressible program properties has a rich structure; in particular, we can distinguish between termination and nondivergence, e.g., unbounded total search fails to be terminating but is nonetheless nondivergent. Our metatheory is entirely constructive as well, and we have formalized it in Coq.

Recursive modules for programming

TheML module system is useful for building large-scale programs. The programmer can factor programs into nested and parameterized modules, and can control abstraction with signatures. Yet ML prohibits recursion between modules. As a result of this constraint, the programmer may have to consolidate conceptually separate components into a single module, intruding on modular programming. Introducing recursive modules is a natural way out of this predicament. Existing proposals, however, vary in expressiveness and verbosity. In this paper, we propose a type system for recursive modules, which can infer their signatures. Opaque signatures can also be given explicitly, to provide type abstraction either inside or outside the recursion. The type system is decidable, and is sound for a call-by-value semantics. We also present a solution to the expression problem, in support of our design choices.

Classical call-by-need sequent calculi: the unity of semantic artifacts

We systematically derive a classical call-by-need sequent calculus, which does not require an unbounded search for the standard redex, by using the unity of semantic artifacts proposed by Danvy et al. The calculus serves as an intermediate step toward the generation of an environment-based abstract machine. The resulting abstract machine is context-free, so that each step is parametric in all but one component. The context-free machine elegantly leads to an environment-based CPS transformation. This transformation is observationally different from a natural classical extension of the transformation of Okasaki et al. , due to duplication of un-evaluated bindings.

On streams that are finitely red

Mixing induction and coinduction, we study alternative definitions of streams being finitely red. We organize our definitions into a hierarchy including also some well-known alternatives in intuitionistic analysis. The hierarchy collapses classically, but is intuitionistically of strictly decreasing strength. We characterize the differences in strength in a precise way by weak instances of the Law of Excluded Middle.

A meta-level control architecture for production systems

Recent production system applications have been experiencing exceedingly difficult software maintenance problems. This is because the control of rule firings has been buried in the production rules themselves. To cope with this problem, we propose a meta-level control architecture for production systems, where procedural programming languages, such as Lisp and C, are employed to explicitly describe the control plans of production systems. The key idea of the architecture is to view production systems as a collection of independent rule processes, each of which monitors the global database and performs actions when its conditions are satisfied by the database. Procedural Control Macros (PCMs), which are based on C.A.R. Hoares (1978) CSP, are then introduced into procedural programming languages to establish communication with the collection of rule processes. Although the PCMs are simple and easy to implement, the readability and maintainability of production system applications are greatly enhanced. Together with the original facilities of procedural languages, the PCMs enable users to efficiently specify the control plans for production systems. Furthermore, since control information is gathered into control plans, production rules can be declarative and thereby application-independent. This new feature makes it possible to develop large-scale shared rule bases. >

A Hoare logic for the coinductive trace-based big-step semantics of While

In search for a foundational framework for reasoning about observable behavior of programs that may not terminate, we have previously devised a trace-based big-step semantics for While. In this semantics, both traces and evaluation (relating initial states of program runs to traces they produce) are defined coinductively. On terminating runs, this semantics agrees with the standard inductive state-based semantics. Here we present a Hoare logic counterpart of our coinductive trace-based semantics and prove it sound and complete. Our logic subsumes the standard partial-correctness state-based Hoare logic as well as the total-correctness variation: they are embeddable. In the converse direction, projections can be constructed: a derivation of a Hoare triple in our trace-based logic can be translated into a derivation in the state-based logic of a translated, weaker Hoare triple. Since we work with a constructive underlying logic, the range of program properties we can reason about has a fine structure; in particular, we can distinguish between termination and nondivergence, e.g., unbounded classically total search fails to be terminating, but is nonetheless nondivergent. Our meta-theory is entirely constructive as well, and we have formalized it in Coq.

A syntactic type system for recursive modules

A practical type system for ML-style recursive modules should address at least two technical challenges. First, it needs to solve the double vision problem, which refers to an inconsistency between external and internal views of recursive modules. Second, it needs to overcome the tension between practical decidability and expressivity which arises from the potential presence of cyclic type definitions caused by recursion between modules. Although type systems in previous proposals solve the double vision problem and are also decidable, they fail to typecheck common patterns of recursive modules, such as functor fixpoints, that are essential to the expressivity of the module system and the modular development of recursive modules. This paper proposes a novel type system for recursive modules that solves the double vision problem and typechecks common patterns of recursive modules including functor fixpoints. First, we design a type system with a type equivalence based on weak bisimilarity, which does not lend itself to practical implementation in general, but accommodates a broad range of cyclic type definitions. Then, we identify a practically implementable fragment using a type equivalence based on type normalization, which is expressive enough to typecheck typical uses of recursive modules. Our approach is purely syntactic and the definition of the type system is ready for use in an actual implementation.