1,716 research outputs found
A Rational Deconstruction of Landin's SECD Machine with the J Operator
Landin's SECD machine was the first abstract machine for applicative
expressions, i.e., functional programs. Landin's J operator was the first
control operator for functional languages, and was specified by an extension of
the SECD machine. We present a family of evaluation functions corresponding to
this extension of the SECD machine, using a series of elementary
transformations (transformation into continu-ation-passing style (CPS) and
defunctionalization, chiefly) and their left inverses (transformation into
direct style and refunctionalization). To this end, we modernize the SECD
machine into a bisimilar one that operates in lockstep with the original one
but that (1) does not use a data stack and (2) uses the caller-save rather than
the callee-save convention for environments. We also identify that the dump
component of the SECD machine is managed in a callee-save way. The caller-save
counterpart of the modernized SECD machine precisely corresponds to Thielecke's
double-barrelled continuations and to Felleisen's encoding of J in terms of
call/cc. We then variously characterize the J operator in terms of CPS and in
terms of delimited-control operators in the CPS hierarchy. As a byproduct, we
also present several reduction semantics for applicative expressions with the J
operator, based on Curien's original calculus of explicit substitutions. These
reduction semantics mechanically correspond to the modernized versions of the
SECD machine and to the best of our knowledge, they provide the first syntactic
theories of applicative expressions with the J operator
A generic operational metatheory for algebraic effects
We provide a syntactic analysis of contextual preorder and equivalence for a polymorphic programming language with effects. Our approach applies uniformly across a range of algebraic effects, and incorporates, as instances: errors, input/output, global state, nondeterminism, probabilistic choice, and combinations thereof. Our approach is to extend Plotkin and Power’s structural operational semantics for algebraic effects (FoSSaCS 2001) with a primitive “basic preorder” on ground type computation trees. The basic preorder is used to derive notions of contextual preorder and equivalence on program terms. Under mild assumptions on this relation, we prove fundamental properties of contextual preorder (hence equivalence) including extensionality properties and a characterisation via applicative contexts, and we provide machinery for reasoning about polymorphism using relational parametricity
On Probabilistic Applicative Bisimulation and Call-by-Value -Calculi (Long Version)
Probabilistic applicative bisimulation is a recently introduced coinductive
methodology for program equivalence in a probabilistic, higher-order, setting.
In this paper, the technique is applied to a typed, call-by-value,
lambda-calculus. Surprisingly, the obtained relation coincides with context
equivalence, contrary to what happens when call-by-name evaluation is
considered. Even more surprisingly, full-abstraction only holds in a symmetric
setting.Comment: 30 page
Simulation in the Call-by-Need Lambda-Calculus with Letrec, Case, Constructors, and Seq
This paper shows equivalence of several versions of applicative similarity
and contextual approximation, and hence also of applicative bisimilarity and
contextual equivalence, in LR, the deterministic call-by-need lambda calculus
with letrec extended by data constructors, case-expressions and Haskell's
seq-operator. LR models an untyped version of the core language of Haskell. The
use of bisimilarities simplifies equivalence proofs in calculi and opens a way
for more convenient correctness proofs for program transformations. The proof
is by a fully abstract and surjective transfer into a call-by-name calculus,
which is an extension of Abramsky's lazy lambda calculus. In the latter
calculus equivalence of our similarities and contextual approximation can be
shown by Howe's method. Similarity is transferred back to LR on the basis of an
inductively defined similarity. The translation from the call-by-need letrec
calculus into the extended call-by-name lambda calculus is the composition of
two translations. The first translation replaces the call-by-need strategy by a
call-by-name strategy and its correctness is shown by exploiting infinite trees
which emerge by unfolding the letrec expressions. The second translation
encodes letrec-expressions by using multi-fixpoint combinators and its
correctness is shown syntactically by comparing reductions of both calculi. A
further result of this paper is an isomorphism between the mentioned calculi,
which is also an identity on letrec-free expressions.Comment: 50 pages, 11 figure
- …