English

Flag-Based Big-Step Semantics

Programming Languages 2016-05-11 v1

Abstract

Structural operational semantic specifications come in different styles: small-step and big-step. A problem with the big-step style is that specifying divergence and abrupt termination gives rise to annoying duplication. We present a novel approach to representing divergence and abrupt termination in big-step semantics using status flags. This avoids the duplication problem, and uses fewer rules and premises for representing divergence than previous approaches in the literature.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1605.02935,
  title  = {Flag-Based Big-Step Semantics},
  author = {Casper Bach Poulsen and Peter D. Mosses},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.02935},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

To appear in The Journal of Logical and Algebraic Methods in Programming, Special Issue: 26th Nordic Workshop for Programming Theory, 2014