Language Prototyping An Algebraic Specification Approach

Language prototyping provides a means to generate language implementations automatically from high-level language definitions. This volume presents an algebraic specification approach to language prototyping, and is centered around the ASF+SDF formalism and Meta-Environment. The volume is an integrated collection of articles covering a number of case studies, and includes several chapters proposing new techniques for deriving advanced language implementations. The accompanying software is freely available. Contents: PrefaceAn Overview of ASF+SDFThe Static Semantics of PascalA Kernel Object-Oriented LanguageTypechecking with Modular Error HandlingMulti-Level SpecificationsIncremental TypecheckingOrigin Tracking and Its ApplicationsSecond-Order Term Rewriting Specification of Static Semantics: An ExerciseOrigin Tracking for Higher-Order Term Rewriting Systems Readership: Software practitioners, graduate students and researchers in computer science. keywords:

The intention of this book is to show how algebraic specification methods can be used for software development to support reliability, modifiability and reusability. These methods are introduced by parameterized and module specifications through practical examples and case studies using algebraic specification languages and tools developed at TU Berlin.

This book investigates the design of compilers for procedural languages, based on the algebraic laws which these languages satisfy. The particular strategy adopted is to reduce an arbitrary source program to a general normal form, capable of representing an arbitrary target machine. This is achieved by a series of normal form reduction theorems which are proved algebraically from the more basic laws. The normal form and the related reduction theorems can then be instantiated to design compilers for distinct target machines. This constitutes the main novelty of the author's approach to compilation, together with the fact that the entire process is formalised within a single and uniform semantic framework of a procedural language and its algberaic laws. Furthermore, by mechanising the approach using the OBJ3 term rewriting system it is shown that a prototype compiler is developed as a byproduct of its own proof of correctness. Contents:IntroductionBackgroundThe Reasoning LanguageA Simple CompilerProcedures, Recursion and ParametersMachine SupportConclusions Readership: Computer scientists. keywords:Compiler Design;Compiler Correctness;Compilation;Algebraic Laws;Algebraic Transformations;Algebraic Semantics;Refinement Algebra;Refinement Laws;Term Rewriting;OBJ3

CafeOBJ is an industrial strength modern algebraic specification language, a successor of the famous OBJ language, and directly incorporating new paradigms such as behavioural concurrent specification and rewriting logic. CafeOBJ is the core of an environment supporting the systems (mainly software but not only) development process at several levels, including prototyping, specification, and formal verification. This book presents not only the formal definition of the language and its semantics, but also methodologies for specification and verification in CafeOBJ, with emphasis on concurrent object composition and modularity. The presentation of the CafeOBJ concepts is supported by many examples, and an appendix illustrates the power of the language and its methodologies by a larger CASE study including specification, testing, and verification. The book may be used both by software engineers interested in algebraic methodologies, and by students and researchers in software engineering and/or theoretical computing science as a fast introduction to state-of-art algebraic specification. Contents:Basic Specifications:SignaturesModelsSentencesSatisfactionProof SystemStructuring Specifications:Fundamental Semantics ConceptsModule ImportsViewsParameterized ModulesModule ExpressionsBuilt-in ModulesProof Technologies:RewritingInductionCoinductionMethodologies:NondeterminismConcurrent Object CompositionDynamic Systems of ObjectsApplications in Rewriting LogicGeneral Small Methodological Advises Readership: Students, researchers, and practitioners in software engineering and/or theoretical computer science. Keywords:Algebraic Specification;Software Engineering;CafeOBJ;OBJ;Object Oriented;Behavioural Specification;Hidden Algebra;Rewriting Logic;Equational Programming;Equational Specification

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the 14th International Workshop on Algebraic Development Techniques, WADT'99, held in Toulouse, France in September 1999. The 23 revised full papers presented together with three invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 69 workshop presentations. The papers address the following topics: algebraic specification and other specification formalisms, test and validation, concurrent processes applications, logic and validation, combining formalisms, subsorts and partiality, structuring, rewriting, co-algebras and sketches, refinement, institutions and categories, and ASM specifications.

This Festschrift volume, published to honor Peter D. Mosses on the occasion of his 60th birthday, includes 17 invited chapters by many of Peter's coauthors, collaborators, close colleagues, and former students. Peter D. Mosses is known for his many contributions in the area of formal program semantics. In particular he developed action semantics, a combination of denotational, operational and algebraic semantics. The presentations - given on a symposium in his honor in Udine, Italy, on September 10, 2009 - were on subjects related to Peter's many technical contributions and they were a tribute to his lasting impact on the field. Topics addressed by the papers are action semantics, security policy design, colored petri nets, order-sorted parameterization and induction, object-oriented action semantics, structural operational semantics, model transformations, the scheme programming language, type checking, action algebras, and denotational semantics.

The intention of this book is to show how algebraic specification methods can be used for software development to support reliability, modifiability and reusability. These methods are introduced by parameterized and module specifications through practical examples and case studies using algebraic specification languages and tools developed at TU Berlin.