The Use of Action Semantics

Mosses, Peter D.; Watt, David A.

doi:10.7146/dpb.v15i217.7568

Cited by 31 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…The present author, in collaboration with Watt, has proposed a framework called action semantics [17,18,23,31]. The meta-language of action semantics includes a rich notation for so-called actions, which are used as denotations of programming constructs in much the same way as abstract computations are used in monadic denotational semantics-in particular, action notation includes a combinator that corresponds closely to composition of (functions from values to) computations in monads.…”

Section: Action Semanticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The present author's contributions to it include: proposals for obtaining modularity in denotational semantics by use of particular styles of auxiliary notation [13], abstract semantic algebras [14], and action combinators [16]; the hybrid (denotational/operational) framework of action semantics [17,18,23,31]; and, recently, a modular framework for (small-and big-step) structural operational semantics, called Modular SOS [20]. Moggi (provoked by the ad-hoc nature of the usual techniques for constructing domains in denotational semantics [15]) has proposed the use of monads and monad transformers [11], see also [9]; he has subsequently developed a more general framework based on translations between meta-languages [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modularity in Meta-Languages

Mosses¹

2000

BRICS

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Abstract.A meta-language for semantics has a high degree of modularity when descriptions of individual language constructs can be formulated independently using it, and do not require reformulation when new constructs are added to the described language. The quest for modularity in semantic meta-languages has been going on for more than two decades. Here, most of the main meta-languages for operational, denotational, and hybrid styles of semantics are compared regarding their modularity. A simple bench-mark is used: describing the semantics of a pure functional language, then extending the described language with references, exceptions, and concurrency constructs. For each style of semantics, at least one of the considered meta-languages appears to provide a high degree of modularity.

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Section: Action Semanticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modularity in Meta-Languages

Mosses¹

2000

BRICS

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“…For example, the MINI-A constant declaration "const n " 10" is mapped by semantic equations A.2 (5,8) to the following action:…”

Section: Transient Eliminationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The storage allocation context: S = (l, q, sd) (8) indicates that action A is at scope level l, that q cells have been allocated statically in the current scope, and that sd indicates whether A is in a it static or it dynamic context.…”

Section: /(; T B S ~-A- A' Ti B'$ ' (5)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Action transformations in the actress compiler generator

Moura¹,

Watt

1994

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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“…The present author and Musicante [19] have given an action semantics [12,13,20,32] for the same language as described by Berry et al [2]. An action semantics translates the described programming language into an action notation, which has a fixed semantics, defined using (a notational variant of) small-step SOS [12, Appendix C]-essentially the same technique as exploited by Harper and Stone in their alternative definition of SML [7].…”

Section: Using Action Semanticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Modular SOS for ML Concurrency Primitives

Mosses¹

1999

BRICS

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Abstract. Modularity is an important pragmatic aspect of semantic descriptions. In denotational semantics, the issue of modularity has received much attention, and appropriate abstractions have been introduced, so that definitions of semantic functions may be independent of the details of how computations are modelled. In structural operational semantics (SOS), however, this issue has largely been neglected, and SOS descriptions of programming languages typically exhibit rather poor modularity-for instance, extending the described language may entail a complete reformulation of the description of the original constructs. A proposal has recently been made for a modular approach to SOS, called MSOS. The basic definitions of the Modular SOS framework are recalled here, but the reader is referred to other papers for a full introduction. This paper focusses on illustrating the applicability of Modular SOS, by using it to give a description of a sublanguage of Concurrent ML (CML); the transition rules for the purely functional constructs do not have to be reformulated at all when adding references and/or processes. The paper concludes by comparing the MSOS description with previous operational descriptions of similar languages. The reader is assumed to be familiar with conventional SOS, with the concepts of functional programming languages such as Standard ML, and with fundamental notions of concurrency. Conventional SOSIn the conventional SOS framework [23,24] programs (and all their constituent phrases) are generally modelled as labelled transition systems:where Γ is the set of configurations, T ⊆ Γ is the set of terminal configurations, is the set of labels, and −→ ⊆ Γ × × Γ is the transition relation. For configurations γ, γ ∈ Γ and label α ∈ , the assertion that (γ, α, γ ) is in the transition relation is written γ The main characteristic feature of SOS is that transition relations are specified inductively, according to the abstract syntax grammar, by giving sets of inference rules where the syntactic components of the initial configurations in the premises of a rule are generally components of that in the conclusion. Other formulae, such as equations, may be used as side-conditions on rules (although for notational convenience one may list them with the premises). The intended transition relation is the least such relation that is closed under the given inference rules. 1There are two distinct styles of SOS. In so-called small-step SOS, each transition in a computation generally corresponds to an indivisible bit of information processing, such as adding two computed numbers, or assigning a computed number to a variable. In big-step SOS, also known as Natural Semantics [10], a (terminating) computation is a single transition leading directly to a terminal configuration, corresponding to the composition of the computations of its constituent phrases. The big-step style can be formally regarded as a special case of the small-step style. The two styles may also be mixed in the same description. e.g., big-step for e...

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The Use of Action Semantics

Cited by 31 publications

References 0 publications

Modularity in Meta-Languages

Modularity in Meta-Languages

Action transformations in the actress compiler generator

A Modular SOS for ML Concurrency Primitives

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