Transforming semantics by abstract interpretation

In 1997, Cousot introduced a hierarchy where semantics are related with each other by abstract interpretation. In this field we consider the standard abstract domain transformers, devoted to refine abstract domains in order to include attribute independent and relational information, respectively the reduced product and power of abstract domains, as domain operations to systematically design and compare semantics of programming languages by abstract interpretation. We first prove that natural semantics can be decomposed in terms of complementary attribute independent observables, leading to an algebraic characterization of the symmetric structure of the hierarchy. Moreover, we characterize some structural property of semantics, such as their compositionality, in terms of simple abstract domain equations. This provides an equational presentation of most well known semantics, which is parametric on the observable and structural property of the semantics, making it possible to systematically derive abstract semantics, e.g. for program analysis, as solutions of abstract domain equations

An Algebraic Theory of Observables

We give an algebraic formalization of SLD-trees and their abstractions (observables) . We can state and prove in the framework several useful theorems (AND-compositionality, correctness and full abstraction of the denotation, equivalent top-down and bottom-up constructions) about semantic properties of various observables. Observables are represented by Galois co-insertions and can be used to model abstract interpretation. The constructions and the theorems are inherited by all the observables which can be formalized in the framework. The power of the framework is shown by reconstructing some known examples (answer constraints, call patterns, correct call patterns and ground dependencies call patterns). 1 Introduction SLD-trees are structures used to describe the operational semantics of logic programs. From an SLD-tree we can derive several operational properties which are useful for reasoning about programs. Examples are SLD - derivations, resultants, call patterns, partial answers,..