Structure and Properties of Traces for Functional Programs

The tracer Hat records in a detailed trace the computation of a program written in the lazy functional language Haskell. The trace can then be viewed in various ways to support program comprehension and debugging. The trace was named the augmented redex trail. Its structure was inspired by standard graph rewriting implementations of functional languages. Here we describe a model of the trace that captures its essential properties and allows formal reasoning. The trace is a graph constructed by graph rewriting but goes beyond simple term graphs. Although the trace is a graph whose structure is independent of any rewriting strategy, we define the trace inductively, thus giving us a powerful method for proving its properties

Confluent rewriting of bisimilar term graphs

AbstractWe present a survey of confluence properties of (acyclic) term graph rewriting. Results and counterexamples are given for four different kinds of term graph rewriting: besides plain applications of rewrite rules, extensions with the operations of collapsing and copying, and with both operations together are considered. Collapsing and copying together constitute bisimilarity of term graphs. We establish sufficient conditions for, and counterexamples to, confluence and confluence modulo bisimilarity of term graph rewriting over various classes of term rewriting systems

Complexity of Acyclic Term Graph Rewriting

Term rewriting has been used as a formal model to reason about the complexity of logic, functional, and imperative programs. In contrast to term rewriting, term graph rewriting permits sharing of common sub-expressions, and consequently is able to capture more closely reasonable implementations of rule based languages. However, the automated complexity analysis of term graph rewriting has received little to no attention. With this work, we provide first steps towards overcoming this situation. We present adaptions of two prominent complexity techniques from term rewriting, viz, the interpretation method and dependency tuples. Our adaptions are non-trivial, in the sense that they can observe not only term but also graph structures, i.e. take sharing into account. In turn, the developed methods allow us to more precisely estimate the runtime complexity of programs where sharing of sub-expressions is essential

On Term-Graph Rewrite Strategies

AbstractWe tackle the problem of cyclic term-graph rewriting. We first revisit the classical algorithmic approach to term-graph rewriting by providing a definition of rewrite rules of the form lhs→rhs where the left-hand sides are term-graphs and the right-hand sides are sequences of actions. Such actions, which specify how to rewrite a term-graph in a stepwise manner, contribute to simplify substantially the definition of cyclic term-graph rewriting. Then we define a new class of term-graph rewrite systems which are confluent over the so-called admissible term-graphs. Finally, we provide an efficient rewrite strategy which contracts only needed redexes and give pointers to other results regarding optimal rewrite strategies of admissible term-graphs

Equational term graph rewriting

We present an equational framework for term graph rewriting with cycles. The usual notion of homomorphism is phrased in terms of the notion of bisimulation, which is well-known in process algebra and concurrency theory. Specifically, a homomorphism is a functional bisimulation. We prove that the bisimilarity class of a term graph, partially ordered by functional bisimulation, is a complete lattice. It is shown how Equational Logic induces a notion of copying and substitution on term graphs, or systems of recursion equations, and also suggests the introduction of hidden or nameless nodes in a term graph. Hidden nodes can be used only once. The general framework of term graphs with copying is compared with the more restricted copying facilities embodied in the $mu$-rule, and translations are given between term graphs and $mu$-expressions. Using these, a proo