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Transforming Big-Step to Small-Step Semantics Using Interpreter Specialisation

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Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14330))

Abstract

Natural semantics (big-step) and structural operational semantics (small-step) each have advantages, so it can be useful to produce both semantic forms for a language. Previous work has shown that big-step semantics can be transformed to small-step semantics. This is also the goal of our work, but our main contribution is to show that this can be done by specialisation of an interpreter that imposes a small-step execution on big-step transition rules. This is arguably more direct, transparent and flexible than previous methods. The paper contains two examples and further examples are available in an online repository.

Partially funded by MICINN projects PID2019-108528RB-C21 ProCode, TED2021-132464B-I00 PRODIGY, and FJC2021-047102-I, and by the Tezos foundation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://github.com/jpgallagher/Semantics4PE/tree/main/Big2Small.

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Acknowledgements

Discussions with Robert Glück, Bishoksan Kafle, Morten Rhiger and Mads Rosendahl are gratefully acknowledged. The paper was improved by the suggestions of the anonymous reviewers.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    John P. Gallagher

  2. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Madrid, Spain

    Manuel Hermenegildo & José Morales

  3. Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Madrid, Spain

    Pedro Lopez-Garcia

  4. IMDEA Software Institute, Madrid, Spain

    John P. Gallagher, Manuel Hermenegildo, José Morales & Pedro Lopez-Garcia

Authors
  1. John P. Gallagher
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  2. Manuel Hermenegildo
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  3. José Morales
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  4. Pedro Lopez-Garcia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to John P. Gallagher .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Robert Glück

  2. IMDEA Software Institute, Madrid, Spain

    Bishoksan Kafle

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Gallagher, J.P., Hermenegildo, M., Morales, J., Lopez-Garcia, P. (2023). Transforming Big-Step to Small-Step Semantics Using Interpreter Specialisation. In: Glück, R., Kafle, B. (eds) Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation. LOPSTR 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14330. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45784-5_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45784-5_3

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