Beyond Trees: Calculating Graph-Based Compilers (Functional Pearl)

Bahr and Hutton recently developed an approach to compiler calculation that allows a wide range of compilers to be derived from specifications of their correctness. However, a limitation of the approach is that it results in compilers that produce tree-structured code. By contrast, realistic compile...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of ACM on programming languages Vol. 8; no. ICFP; pp. 370 - 394
Main Authors: Bahr, Patrick, Hutton, Graham
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York, NY, USA ACM 15.08.2024
Subjects:
Compilers
Formal software verification
Logic and verification
Program verification
Software and its engineering
Theory of computation
program calculation
graphs
higher-order abstract syntax
ISSN:2475-1421, 2475-1421
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Bahr and Hutton recently developed an approach to compiler calculation that allows a wide range of compilers to be derived from specifications of their correctness. However, a limitation of the approach is that it results in compilers that produce tree-structured code. By contrast, realistic compilers produce code that is essentially graph-structured, where the edges in the graph represent jumps that transfer the flow of control to other locations in the code. In this article, we show how their approach can naturally be adapted to calculate compilers that produce graph-structured code, without changing the underlying calculational methodology, by using a higher-order abstract syntax representation of graphs.
ISSN:2475-1421
2475-1421
DOI:10.1145/3674638