Abstract.A semantics to a small fragment of Java capturing the new memory model (JMM) described in the Language Specification is given by combining operational, denotational and axiomatic techniques in a novel semantic framework. The operational steps (specified in the form of SOS) construct denotational models (configuration structures) and are constrained by the axioms of a configuration theory. The semantics is proven correct with respect to the Language Specification and shown to capture many common examples in the JMM literature.
A structural operational semantics of a significant sublanguage of Java is presented, including the running and stopping of threads, thread interaction via shared memory, synchronization by monitoring and notification, and sequential control mechanisms such as exception handling and return statements. The operational semantics is parametric in the notion of "event space" [6], which formalizes the rules that threads and memory must obey in their interaction. Different computational models are obtained by modifying the well-formedness conditions on event spaces while leaving the operational rules untouched. In particular, we implement the prescient stores described in [10, §17.8] which allow certain intermediate code optimizations, and prove that such stores do not affect the semantics of properly synchronized programs.
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