Inductive and Coinductive Components of Corecursive Functions in Coq

In Constructive Type Theory, recursive and corecursive definitions are subject to syntactic restrictions which guarantee termination for recursive functions and productivity for corecursive functions. However, many terminating and productive functions do not pass the syntactic tests. Bove proposed in her thesis an elegant reformulation of the method of accessibility predicates that widens the range of terminative recursive functions formalisable in Constructive Type Theory. In this paper, we pursue the same goal for productive corecursive functions. Notably, our method of formalisation of coinductive definitions of productive functions in Coq requires not only the use of ad-hoc predicates, but also a systematic algorithm that separates the inductive and coinductive parts of functions.Comment: Dans Coalgebraic Methods in Computer Science (2008

Inversion, Iteration, and the Art of Dual Wielding

The humble $\dagger$ ("dagger") is used to denote two different operations in category theory: Taking the adjoint of a morphism (in dagger categories) and finding the least fixed point of a functional (in categories enriched in domains). While these two operations are usually considered separately from one another, the emergence of reversible notions of computation shows the need to consider how the two ought to interact. In the present paper, we wield both of these daggers at once and consider dagger categories enriched in domains. We develop a notion of a monotone dagger structure as a dagger structure that is well behaved with respect to the enrichment, and show that such a structure leads to pleasant inversion properties of the fixed points that arise as a result. Notably, such a structure guarantees the existence of fixed point adjoints, which we show are intimately related to the conjugates arising from a canonical involutive monoidal structure in the enrichment. Finally, we relate the results to applications in the design and semantics of reversible programming languages.Comment: Accepted for RC 201

Tail recursion transformation for invertible functions

Tail recursive functions allow for a wider range of optimisations than general recursive functions. For this reason, much research has gone into the transformation and optimisation of this family of functions, in particular those written in continuation passing style (CPS). Though the CPS transformation, capable of transforming any recursive function to an equivalent tail recursive one, is deeply problematic in the context of reversible programming (as it relies on troublesome features such as higher-order functions), we argue that relaxing (local) reversibility to (global) invertibility drastically improves the situation. On this basis, we present an algorithm for tail recursion conversion specifically for invertible functions. The key insight is that functions introduced by program transformations that preserve invertibility, need only be invertible in the context in which the functions subject of transformation calls them. We show how a bespoke data type, corresponding to such a context, can be used to transform invertible recursive functions into a pair of tail recursive function acting on this context, in a way where calls are highlighted, and from which a tail recursive inverse can be straightforwardly extracted.Comment: Submitted to 15th Conference on Reversible Computation, 202

Combining Syntactic and Semantic Bidirectionalization

Matsuda et al. [2007, ICFP] and Voigtlander [2009, POPL] introduced two techniques that given a source-to-view function provide an update propagation function mapping an original source and an updated view back to an updated source, subject to standard consistency conditions. Being fundamentally different in approach, both techniques have their respective strengths and weaknesses. Here we develop a synthesis of the two techniques to good effect. On the intersection of their applicability domains we achieve more than what a simple union of applying the techniques side by side deliver

A Falsification View of Success Typing

Dynamic languages are praised for their flexibility and expressiveness, but static analysis often yields many false positives and verification is cumbersome for lack of structure. Hence, unit testing is the prevalent incomplete method for validating programs in such languages. Falsification is an alternative approach that uncovers definite errors in programs. A falsifier computes a set of inputs that definitely crash a program. Success typing is a type-based approach to document programs in dynamic languages. We demonstrate that success typing is, in fact, an instance of falsification by mapping success (input) types into suitable logic formulae. Output types are represented by recursive types. We prove the correctness of our mapping (which establishes that success typing is falsification) and we report some experiences with a prototype implementation.Comment: extended versio

General Recursion via Coinductive Types

A fertile field of research in theoretical computer science investigates the representation of general recursive functions in intensional type theories. Among the most successful approaches are: the use of wellfounded relations, implementation of operational semantics, formalization of domain theory, and inductive definition of domain predicates. Here, a different solution is proposed: exploiting coinductive types to model infinite computations. To every type A we associate a type of partial elements Partial(A), coinductively generated by two constructors: the first, return(a) just returns an element a:A; the second, step(x), adds a computation step to a recursive element x:Partial(A). We show how this simple device is sufficient to formalize all recursive functions between two given types. It allows the definition of fixed points of finitary, that is, continuous, operators. We will compare this approach to different ones from the literature. Finally, we mention that the formalization, with appropriate structural maps, defines a strong monad.Comment: 28 page