Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics
Structural operational semantics is a popular technique for specifying the meaning of programs by means of inductive clauses. One seeks syntactic restrictions on those clauses so that the resulting operational semantics is well-behaved. This approach is simple and concrete but it has some drawback...
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| Format: | Conference or Workshop Item |
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2008
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28189/ |
| _version_ | 1848793521881874432 |
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| author | Jaskelioff, Mauro Javier Ghani, Neil Hutton, Graham |
| author_facet | Jaskelioff, Mauro Javier Ghani, Neil Hutton, Graham |
| author_sort | Jaskelioff, Mauro Javier |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Structural operational semantics is a popular technique for specifying the meaning of programs by means of inductive clauses. One seeks syntactic restrictions on those clauses so that the resulting operational semantics is well-behaved. This approach is simple and concrete but it has some drawbacks. Turi pioneered a more abstract categorical treatment based upon the idea that operational semantics is essentially a distribution of syntax over behaviour. In this article we take Turi's approach in two new directions. Firstly, we show how to write operational semantics as modular components and how to combine such components to specify complete languages. Secondly, we show how the categorical nature of Turi's operational semantics makes it ideal for implementation in a functional programming language such as Haskell. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:01:38Z |
| format | Conference or Workshop Item |
| id | nottingham-28189 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:01:38Z |
| publishDate | 2008 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-281892020-05-04T20:27:18Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28189/ Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics Jaskelioff, Mauro Javier Ghani, Neil Hutton, Graham Structural operational semantics is a popular technique for specifying the meaning of programs by means of inductive clauses. One seeks syntactic restrictions on those clauses so that the resulting operational semantics is well-behaved. This approach is simple and concrete but it has some drawbacks. Turi pioneered a more abstract categorical treatment based upon the idea that operational semantics is essentially a distribution of syntax over behaviour. In this article we take Turi's approach in two new directions. Firstly, we show how to write operational semantics as modular components and how to combine such components to specify complete languages. Secondly, we show how the categorical nature of Turi's operational semantics makes it ideal for implementation in a functional programming language such as Haskell. 2008-07 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed Jaskelioff, Mauro Javier, Ghani, Neil and Hutton, Graham (2008) Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics. In: Second Workshop on Mathematically Structured Functional Programming (MSFP 2008), 6 July 2008, Reykjavik, Iceland. Modularity Category theory Operational semantics Haskell http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571066111000545 |
| spellingShingle | Modularity Category theory Operational semantics Haskell Jaskelioff, Mauro Javier Ghani, Neil Hutton, Graham Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics |
| title | Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics |
| title_full | Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics |
| title_fullStr | Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics |
| title_full_unstemmed | Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics |
| title_short | Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics |
| title_sort | modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics |
| topic | Modularity Category theory Operational semantics Haskell |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28189/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28189/ |