Contextual Equivalences in Call-by-Need and Call-By-Name Polymorphically Typed Calculi (Preliminary Report)

This paper presents a call-by-need polymorphically typed lambda-calculus with letrec, case, constructors and seq. The typing of the calculus is modelled in a system-F style. Contextual equivalence is used as semantics of expressions. We also define a call-by-name variant without letrec. We adapt several tools and criteria for recognizing correct program transformations to polymorphic typing, in particular an inductive applicative simulation

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

A finite simulation method in a non-deterministic call-by-need calculus with letrec, constructors and case

The paper proposes a variation of simulation for checking and proving contextual equivalence in a non-deterministic call-by-need lambda-calculus with constructors, case, seq, and a letrec with cyclic dependencies. It also proposes a novel method to prove its correctness. The calculus' semantics is based on a small-step rewrite semantics and on may-convergence. The cyclic nature of letrec bindings, as well as non-determinism, makes known approaches to prove that simulation implies contextual equivalence, such as Howe's proof technique, inapplicable in this setting. The basic technique for the simulation as well as the correctness proof is called pre-evaluation, which computes a set of answers for every closed expression. If simulation succeeds in finite computation depth, then it is guaranteed to show contextual preorder of expressions

Counterexamples to simulation in non-deterministic call-by-need lambda-calculi with letrec

This note shows that in non-deterministic extended lambda calculi with letrec, the tool of applicative (bi)simulation is in general not usable for contextual equivalence, by giving a counterexample adapted from data flow analysis. It also shown that there is a flaw in a lemma and a theorem concerning finite simulation in a conference paper by the first two authors

On conservativity of concurrent Haskell

The calculus CHF models Concurrent Haskell extended by concurrent, implicit futures. It is a process calculus with concurrent threads, monadic concurrent evaluation, and includes a pure functional lambda-calculus which comprises data constructors, case-expressions, letrec-expressions, and Haskell’s seq. Futures can be implemented in Concurrent Haskell using the primitive unsafeInterleaveIO, which is available in most implementations of Haskell. Our main result is conservativity of CHF, that is, all equivalences of pure functional expressions are also valid in CHF. This implies that compiler optimizations and transformations from pure Haskell remain valid in Concurrent Haskell even if it is extended by futures. We also show that this is no longer valid if Concurrent Haskell is extended by the arbitrary use of unsafeInterleaveIO

A call-by-need lambda-calculus with locally bottom-avoiding choice: context lemma and correctness of transformations

We present a higher-order call-by-need lambda calculus enriched with constructors, case-expressions, recursive letrec-expressions, a seq-operator for sequential evaluation and a non-deterministic operator amb, which is locally bottom-avoiding. We use a small-step operational semantics in form of a normal order reduction. As equational theory we use contextual equivalence, i.e. terms are equal if plugged into an arbitrary program context their termination behaviour is the same. We use a combination of may- as well as must-convergence, which is appropriate for non-deterministic computations. We evolve different proof tools for proving correctness of program transformations. We provide a context lemma for may- as well as must- convergence which restricts the number of contexts that need to be examined for proving contextual equivalence. In combination with so-called complete sets of commuting and forking diagrams we show that all the deterministic reduction rules and also some additional transformations keep contextual equivalence. In contrast to other approaches our syntax as well as semantics does not make use of a heap for sharing expressions. Instead we represent these expressions explicitely via letrec-bindings

An Environment for Analyzing Space Optimizations in Call-by-Need Functional Languages

We present an implementation of an interpreter LRPi for the call-by-need calculus LRP, based on a variant of Sestoft's abstract machine Mark 1, extended with an eager garbage collector. It is used as a tool for exact space usage analyses as a support for our investigations into space improvements of call-by-need calculi.Comment: In Proceedings WPTE 2016, arXiv:1701.0023

A complete proof of the safety of Nöcker's strictness analysis

This paper proves correctness of Nöcker's method of strictness analysis, implemented in the Clean compiler, which is an effective way for strictness analysis in lazy functional languages based on their operational semantics. We improve upon the work of Clark, Hankin and Hunt did on the correctness of the abstract reduction rules. Our method fully considers the cycle detection rules, which are the main strength of Nöcker's strictness analysis. Our algorithm SAL is a reformulation of Nöcker's strictness analysis algorithm in a higher-order call-by-need lambda-calculus with case, constructors, letrec, and seq, extended by set constants like Top or Inf, denoting sets of expressions. It is also possible to define new set constants by recursive equations with a greatest fixpoint semantics. The operational semantics is a small-step semantics. Equality of expressions is defined by a contextual semantics that observes termination of expressions. Basically, SAL is a non-termination checker. The proof of its correctness and hence of Nöcker's strictness analysis is based mainly on an exact analysis of the lengths of normal order reduction sequences. The main measure being the number of 'essential' reductions in a normal order reduction sequence. Our tools and results provide new insights into call-by-need lambda-calculi, the role of sharing in functional programming languages, and into strictness analysis in general. The correctness result provides a foundation for Nöcker's strictness analysis in Clean, and also for its use in Haskell

Algorithms for Extended Alpha-Equivalence and Complexity

Equality of expressions in lambda-calculi, higher-order programming languages, higher-order programming calculi and process calculi is defined as alpha-equivalence. Permutability of bindings in let-constructs and structural congruence axioms extend alpha-equivalence. We analyse these extended alpha-equivalences and show that there are calculi with polynomial time algorithms, that a multiple-binding “let ” may make alpha-equivalence as hard as finding graph-isomorphisms, and that the replication operator in the pi-calculus may lead to an EXPSPACE-hard alpha-equivalence problem