A rewriting logic approach to operational semantics

This paper shows how rewriting logic semantics (RLS) can be used as a computational logic framework for operational semantic definitions of programming languages. Several operational semantics styles are addressed: big-step and small-step structural operational semantics (SOS), modular SOS, reductio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information and computation Vol. 207; no. 2; pp. 305 - 340
Main Authors: Şerbănuţă, Traian Florin, Roşu, Grigore, Meseguer, José
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier Inc 01.02.2009
Subjects:
Operational semantics
Rewriting logic
Rewriting logic semantics
Operational semantics
Rewriting logic
Rewriting logic semantics
ISSN:0890-5401, 1090-2651
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This paper shows how rewriting logic semantics (RLS) can be used as a computational logic framework for operational semantic definitions of programming languages. Several operational semantics styles are addressed: big-step and small-step structural operational semantics (SOS), modular SOS, reduction semantics with evaluation contexts, continuation-based semantics, and the chemical abstract machine. Each of these language definitional styles can be faithfully captured as an RLS theory, in the sense that there is a one-to-one correspondence between computational steps in the original language definition and computational steps in the corresponding RLS theory. A major goal of this paper is to show that RLS does not force or pre-impose any given language definitional style, and that its flexibility and ease of use makes RLS an appealing framework for exploring new definitional styles.
ISSN:0890-5401
1090-2651
DOI:10.1016/j.ic.2008.03.026