Related papers: Pretty-big-step-semantics-based Certified Abstract…

Formal semantics provides rigorous, mathematically precise definitions of programming languages, with which we can argue about program behaviour and program equivalence by formal means; in particular, we can describe and verify our…

This paper describes a methodology for defining an executable abstract interpreter from a formal description of the semantics of a programming language. Our approach is based on Skeletal Semantics and an abstract interpretation of its…

In some contexts, well-formed natural language cannot be expected as input to information or communication systems. In these contexts, the use of grammar-independent input (sequences of uninflected semantic units like e.g.…

The focus of these lecture notes is on abstract models and basic ideas and results that relate to the operational semantics of programming languages largely conceived. The approach is to start with an abstract description of the computation…

We describe several views of the semantics of a simple programming language as formal documents in the calculus of inductive constructions that can be verified by the Coq proof system. Covered aspects are natural semantics, denotational…

Verified compilers aim to guarantee that compilation preserves the observable behavior of source programs. While small-step semantics are widely used in such compilers, they are not always the most convenient framework for structural…

Using a call-by-value functional language as an example, this article illustrates the use of coinductive definitions and proofs in big-step operational semantics, enabling it to describe diverging evaluations in addition to terminating…

By paying more attention to semantics-based tool generation, programming language semantics can significantly increase its impact. Ultimately, this may lead to ``Language Design Assistants'' incorporating substantial amounts of semantic…

A reliable technique for deductive program verification should be proven sound with respect to the semantics of the programming language. For each different language, the construction of a separate soundness proof is often a laborious…

Programmers currently enjoy access to a very high number of code repositories and libraries of ever increasing size. The ensuing potential for reuse is however hampered by the fact that searching within all this code becomes an increasingly…

The goal of this lecture is to show how modern theorem provers---in this case, the Coq proof assistant---can be used to mechanize the specification of programming languages and their semantics, and to reason over individual programs and…

We present a novel approach to construction of a formal semantics for a programming language. Our approach, using a parametric denotational semantics, allows the semantics to be easily extended to support new language features, and…

Semantic parsing, i.e., the automatic derivation of meaning representation such as an instantiated predicate-argument structure for a sentence, plays a critical role in deep processing of natural language. Unlike all other top systems of…

Predictive models are fundamental to engineering reliable software systems. However, designing conservative, computable approximations for the behavior of programs (static analyses) remains a difficult and error-prone process for modern…

As is evident in the programming language literature, many practitioners favor specifying dynamic program behavior using big-step over small-step semantics. Unlike small-step semantics, which must dwell on every intermediate program state,…

In David Schmidt's PhD work he explored the use of denotational semantics as a programming language. It was part of an effort to not only treat formal semantics as specifications but also as interpreters and input to compiler generators.…

Automatic differentiation plays a prominent role in scientific computing and in modern machine learning, often in the context of powerful programming systems. The relation of the various embodiments of automatic differentiation to the…

Semantic parsing aims to map natural language utterances onto machine interpretable meaning representations, aka programs whose execution against a real-world environment produces a denotation. Weakly-supervised semantic parsers are trained…

Many universities have courses and projects revolving around compiler or interpreter implementation as part of their degree programmes in computer science. In such teaching activities, tool support can be highly beneficial. While there are…

Static analyzers based on abstract interpretation are complex pieces of software implementing delicate algorithms. Even if static analysis techniques are well understood, their implementation on real languages is still error-prone. This…