Why untyped nonground metaprogramming is not (much of) a problem

We study a semantics for untyped, vanilla metaprograms, using the nonground representation for object level variables. We introduce the notion of language independence, which generalizes range restriction. We show that the vanilla metaprogram associated with a stratified normal object program is wea...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The journal of logic programming Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 47 - 99
Main Authors: Martens, Bern, de Schreye, Danny
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New-York, NY Elsevier Inc 1995
Elsevier
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Computer science; control theory; systems
Exact sciences and technology
Language theory and syntactical analysis
Programming theory
Software
Software engineering
Theoretical computing
Extension
Metaprogramming
Programming language
Semantics
Independence
Object oriented
Modular programming
Logical programming
Interpretation
Program behavior
ISSN:0743-1066, 1873-5789
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We study a semantics for untyped, vanilla metaprograms, using the nonground representation for object level variables. We introduce the notion of language independence, which generalizes range restriction. We show that the vanilla metaprogram associated with a stratified normal object program is weakly stratified. For language independent, stratified normal object programs, we prove that there is a natural one-to-one correspondence between atoms p( t 1,…, t r ) in the perfect Herbrand model of the object program and solve( p( t 1,…, t r )) atoms in the weakly perfect Herb and model of the associated vanilla metaprogram. Thus, for this class of programs, the weakly perfect Herbrand model provides a sensible semantics for the metaprogram. We show that this result generalizes to nonlanguage independent programs in the context of an extended Herbrand semantics, designed to closely mirror the operational behavior of logic programs. Moreover, we also consider a number of interesting extensions and/or variants of the basic vanilla metainterpreter. For instance, we demonstrate how our approach provides a sensible semantics for a limited form of amalgamation.
ISSN:0743-1066
1873-5789
DOI:10.1016/0743-1066(94)00015-X