463 research outputs found
Resumptions, Weak Bisimilarity and Big-Step Semantics for While with Interactive I/O: An Exercise in Mixed Induction-Coinduction
We look at the operational semantics of languages with interactive I/O
through the glasses of constructive type theory. Following on from our earlier
work on coinductive trace-based semantics for While, we define several big-step
semantics for While with interactive I/O, based on resumptions and
termination-sensitive weak bisimilarity. These require nesting inductive
definitions in coinductive definitions, which is interesting both
mathematically and from the point-of-view of implementation in a proof
assistant.
After first defining a basic semantics of statements in terms of resumptions
with explicit internal actions (delays), we introduce a semantics in terms of
delay-free resumptions that essentially removes finite sequences of delays on
the fly from those resumptions that are responsive. Finally, we also look at a
semantics in terms of delay-free resumptions supplemented with a silent
divergence option. This semantics hinges on decisions between convergence and
divergence and is only equivalent to the basic one classically.
We have fully formalized our development in Coq.Comment: In Proceedings SOS 2010, arXiv:1008.190
Coinductive Big-Step Semantics for Concurrency
In a paper presented at SOS 2010, we developed a framework for big-step
semantics for interactive input-output in combination with divergence, based on
coinductive and mixed inductive-coinductive notions of resumptions, evaluation
and termination-sensitive weak bisimilarity. In contrast to standard
inductively defined big-step semantics, this framework handles divergence
properly; in particular, runs that produce some observable effects and then
diverge, are not "lost". Here we scale this approach for shared-variable
concurrency on a simple example language. We develop the metatheory of our
semantics in a constructive logic.Comment: In Proceedings PLACES 2013, arXiv:1312.221
Proof Relevant Corecursive Resolution
Resolution lies at the foundation of both logic programming and type class
context reduction in functional languages. Terminating derivations by
resolution have well-defined inductive meaning, whereas some non-terminating
derivations can be understood coinductively. Cycle detection is a popular
method to capture a small subset of such derivations. We show that in fact
cycle detection is a restricted form of coinductive proof, in which the atomic
formula forming the cycle plays the role of coinductive hypothesis.
This paper introduces a heuristic method for obtaining richer coinductive
hypotheses in the form of Horn formulas. Our approach subsumes cycle detection
and gives coinductive meaning to a larger class of derivations. For this
purpose we extend resolution with Horn formula resolvents and corecursive
evidence generation. We illustrate our method on non-terminating type class
resolution problems.Comment: 23 pages, with appendices in FLOPS 201
Bialgebraic Semantics for Logic Programming
Bialgebrae provide an abstract framework encompassing the semantics of
different kinds of computational models. In this paper we propose a bialgebraic
approach to the semantics of logic programming. Our methodology is to study
logic programs as reactive systems and exploit abstract techniques developed in
that setting. First we use saturation to model the operational semantics of
logic programs as coalgebrae on presheaves. Then, we make explicit the
underlying algebraic structure by using bialgebrae on presheaves. The resulting
semantics turns out to be compositional with respect to conjunction and term
substitution. Also, it encodes a parallel model of computation, whose soundness
is guaranteed by a built-in notion of synchronisation between different
threads
Flag-based big-step semantics
Structural operational semantic specifications come in different styles: small-step and big-step. A problem with the big-step style is that specifying divergence and abrupt termination gives rise to annoying duplication. We present a novel approach to representing divergence and abrupt termination in big-step semantics using status flags. This avoids the duplication problem, and uses fewer rules and premises for representing divergence than previous approaches in the literature
Coinductive big-step operational semantics
Using a call-by-value functional language as an example, this article
illustrates the use of coinductive definitions and proofs in big-step
operational semantics, enabling it to describe diverging evaluations in
addition to terminating evaluations. We formalize the connections between the
coinductive big-step semantics and the standard small-step semantics, proving
that both semantics are equivalent. We then study the use of coinductive
big-step semantics in proofs of type soundness and proofs of semantic
preservation for compilers. A methodological originality of this paper is that
all results have been proved using the Coq proof assistant. We explain the
proof-theoretic presentation of coinductive definitions and proofs offered by
Coq, and show that it facilitates the discovery and the presentation of the
results
Interaction Trees: Representing Recursive and Impure Programs in Coq
"Interaction trees" (ITrees) are a general-purpose data structure for
representing the behaviors of recursive programs that interact with their
environments. A coinductive variant of "free monads," ITrees are built out of
uninterpreted events and their continuations. They support compositional
construction of interpreters from "event handlers", which give meaning to
events by defining their semantics as monadic actions. ITrees are expressive
enough to represent impure and potentially nonterminating, mutually recursive
computations, while admitting a rich equational theory of equivalence up to
weak bisimulation. In contrast to other approaches such as relationally
specified operational semantics, ITrees are executable via code extraction,
making them suitable for debugging, testing, and implementing software
artifacts that are amenable to formal verification.
We have implemented ITrees and their associated theory as a Coq library,
mechanizing classic domain- and category-theoretic results about program
semantics, iteration, monadic structures, and equational reasoning. Although
the internals of the library rely heavily on coinductive proofs, the interface
hides these details so that clients can use and reason about ITrees without
explicit use of Coq's coinduction tactics.
To showcase the utility of our theory, we prove the termination-sensitive
correctness of a compiler from a simple imperative source language to an
assembly-like target whose meanings are given in an ITree-based denotational
semantics. Unlike previous results using operational techniques, our
bisimulation proof follows straightforwardly by structural induction and
elementary rewriting via an equational theory of combinators for control-flow
graphs.Comment: 28 pages, 4 pages references, published at POPL 202
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