1,507 research outputs found
Provably Correct Compiler Generation
We have designed, implemented, and proved the correctness of a compiler generator that accepts action semantic descriptions of imperative programming languages. We have used it to generate compilers for both a toy language and a non-trivial subset of Ada. The generated compilers emit absolute code for an abstract RISC machine language that is assembled into code for the SPARC and the HP Precision Architecture. The generated code is an order of magnitude better than that produced by compilers generated by the classical systems of Mosses, Paulson, and Wand. Our machine language needs no run time type-checking and is thus more realistic than those considered in previous compiler proofs. We use solely algebraic specifications; proofs are given in the initiaI model. The use of action semantics makes the processable language specifications easy to read and pleasant to work with. We view our compiler generator as a promising first step towards user-friendly and automatic generation of realistic and provably correct compilers
The Ecce and Logen Partial Evaluators and their Web Interfaces
We present Ecce and Logen, two partial evaluators for Prolog using the online and offline approach respectively. We briefly present the foundations of these tools and discuss various applications. We also present new implementations of these tools, carried out in Ciao Prolog. In addition to a command-line interface new user-friendly web interfaces were developed. These enable non-expert users to specialise logic programs using a web browser, without the need for a local installation
Action semantics in retrospect
This paper is a themed account of the action semantics project, which Peter Mosses has led since the 1980s. It explains his motivations for developing action semantics, the inspirations behind its design, and the foundations of action semantics based on unified algebras. It goes on to outline some applications of action semantics to describe real programming languages, and some efforts to implement programming languages using action semantics directed compiler generation. It concludes by outlining more recent developments and reflecting on the success of the action semantics project
Theory and Practice of Action Semantics
Action Semantics is a framework for the formal descriptionof programming languages. Its main advantage over other frameworksis pragmatic: action-semantic descriptions (ASDs) scale up smoothly torealistic programming languages. This is due to the inherent extensibilityand modifiability of ASDs, ensuring that extensions and changes tothe described language require only proportionate changes in its description.(In denotational or operational semantics, adding an unforeseenconstruct to a language may require a reformulation of the entire description.)After sketching the background for the development of action semantics,we summarize the main ideas of the framework, and provide a simpleillustrative example of an ASD. We identify which features of ASDsare crucial for good pragmatics. Then we explain the foundations ofaction semantics, and survey recent advances in its theory and practicalapplications. Finally, we assess the prospects for further developmentand use of action semantics.The action semantics framework was initially developed at the Universityof Aarhus by the present author, in collaboration with David Watt(University of Glasgow). Groups and individuals scattered around fivecontinents have since contributed to its theory and practice
Synthesis of Recursive ADT Transformations from Reusable Templates
Recent work has proposed a promising approach to improving scalability of
program synthesis by allowing the user to supply a syntactic template that
constrains the space of potential programs. Unfortunately, creating templates
often requires nontrivial effort from the user, which impedes the usability of
the synthesizer. We present a solution to this problem in the context of
recursive transformations on algebraic data-types. Our approach relies on
polymorphic synthesis constructs: a small but powerful extension to the
language of syntactic templates, which makes it possible to define a program
space in a concise and highly reusable manner, while at the same time retains
the scalability benefits of conventional templates. This approach enables
end-users to reuse predefined templates from a library for a wide variety of
problems with little effort. The paper also describes a novel optimization that
further improves the performance and scalability of the system. We evaluated
the approach on a set of benchmarks that most notably includes desugaring
functions for lambda calculus, which force the synthesizer to discover Church
encodings for pairs and boolean operations
Abstract verification and debugging of constraint logic programs
The technique of Abstract Interpretation [13] has allowed the development of sophisticated program analyses which are provably correct and practical. The semantic approximations produced by such analyses have been traditionally applied to optimization during program compilation. However, recently, novel and promising applications of semantic approximations have been proposed in the more general context of program verification and debugging [3],[10],[7]
Partial-indistinguishability obfuscation using braids
An obfuscator is an algorithm that translates circuits into
functionally-equivalent similarly-sized circuits that are hard to understand.
Efficient obfuscators would have many applications in cryptography. Until
recently, theoretical progress has mainly been limited to no-go results. Recent
works have proposed the first efficient obfuscation algorithms for classical
logic circuits, based on a notion of indistinguishability against
polynomial-time adversaries. In this work, we propose a new notion of
obfuscation, which we call partial-indistinguishability. This notion is based
on computationally universal groups with efficiently computable normal forms,
and appears to be incomparable with existing definitions. We describe universal
gate sets for both classical and quantum computation, in which our definition
of obfuscation can be met by polynomial-time algorithms. We also discuss some
potential applications to testing quantum computers. We stress that the
cryptographic security of these obfuscators, especially when composed with
translation from other gate sets, remains an open question.Comment: 21 pages,Proceedings of TQC 201
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