The rewriting logic semantics project

Abstract

Rewriting logic is a flexible and expressive logical framework that unifies algebraic denotational semantics and structural operational semantics (SOS) in a novel way, avoiding their respective limitations and allowing succinct semantic definitions. The fact that a rewrite logic theory's axioms include both equations and rewrite rules provides a useful "abstraction dial" to find the right balance between abstraction and computational observability in semantic definitions. Such semantic definitions are directly executable as interpreters in a rewriting logic language such as Maude, whose generic formal tools can be used to endow those interpreters with powerful program analysis capabilities.

Proving Safety Properties of Rewrite Theories

“…Among such case studies, the application InvA as a generic tool to the verification of programs in specific programming languages should be given high priority, since this will demonstrate the wide applicability of the reasoning methods presented here. Fortunately, thanks to recent advances in the rewriting logic semantics project [15], there is already a wealth of language specifications available, to which the generic model checking verification approach using the Maude LTL model checker has already been successfully applied.…”

“…The generic framework and its tools can then be easily specialized to specific languages. This is exactly the approach taken in the rewriting logic semantics project [15], where the semantics of a wide variety of concurrent programming languages is defined in rewriting logic, and then Maude [4] and its LTL model checker can be used to verify programs in any of those languages.…”

A Rewriting Logic Approach to Type Inference

“…Meseguer's rewriting logic [25], not to be confused with term rewriting, organizes term rewriting modulo equations as a logic with a complete proof system and initial model semantics. Meseguer and Ros , u's RLS [1,2] seeks to make rewriting logic a foundation for programming language semantics and analysis that unifies operational and algebraic denotational semantics.…”

“…Meseguer and Ros , u proposed rewriting logic as a semantic foundation for the definition and analysis of languages [1,2], as well as type systems and policy checkers for languages [2]. More precisely, they proposed rewriting integer values to their types and incrementally rewriting a program until it becomes a type or other desired abstract value.…”

Runtime Verification of C Memory Safety

“…We here discuss the definition of KernelC using K [10], a technique for defining languages within the Rewriting Logic Semantics [6,14]. Within this framework, languages L are defined as rewrite theories (Σ L , E L , R L ), where Σ L is a signature extending the syntax of L, E L is a set of Σ L -equations, which are thought of as structural rearrangements preparing the context for rules and carrying no computational meaning, while R L is a set of Σ L -rules, used to model irreversible computational steps.…”