Some total languages, like Agda and Coq, allow the use of guarded corecursion
to construct infinite values and proofs. Guarded corecursion is a form of
recursion in which arbitrary recursive calls are allowed, as long as they are
guarded by a coinductive constructor. Guardedness ensures that programs are
productive, i.e. that every finite prefix of an infinite value can be computed
in finite time. However, many productive programs are not guarded, and it can
be nontrivial to put them in guarded form.
This paper gives a method for turning a productive program into a guarded
program. The method amounts to defining a problem-specific language as a data
type, writing the program in the problem-specific language, and writing a
guarded interpreter for this language.Comment: In Proceedings PAR 2010, arXiv:1012.455