Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10325559 | Journal of Symbolic Computation | 2005 | 35 Pages |
Abstract
Declarative multi-paradigm languages combine the most important features of functional, logic and concurrent programming. The computational model of such integrated languages is usually based on a combination of two different operational principles: narrowing and residuation. This work is motivated by the fact that a precise definition of an operational semantics including all aspects of modern multi-paradigm languages like laziness, sharing, non-determinism, equational constraints, external functions and concurrency does not exist. Therefore, in this article, we present the first rigorous operational description covering all the aforementioned features in a precise and understandable manner. We develop our operational semantics in several steps. First, we define a natural (big-step) semantics covering laziness, sharing and non-determinism. We also present an equivalent small-step semantics which additionally includes a number of practical features like equational constraints and external functions. Then, we introduce a deterministic version of the small-step semantics which makes the search strategy explicit; this is essential for profiling, tracing, debugging etc. Finally, the deterministic semantics is extended in order to cover the concurrent facilities of modern declarative multi-paradigm languages. The semantics developed provides an appropriate foundation for modeling actual declarative multi-paradigm languages like Curry. The complete operational semantics has been implemented and used with various programming tools.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence
Authors
Elvira Albert, Michael Hanus, Frank Huch, Javier Oliver, Germán Vidal,