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International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning

IJCAR 2004: Automated Reasoning pp 1–44Cite as

Rewriting Logic Semantics: From Language Specifications to Formal Analysis Tools

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3097))

Abstract

Formal semantic definitions of concurrent languages, when specified in a well-suited semantic framework and supported by generic and efficient formal tools, can be the basis of powerful software analysis tools. Such tools can be obtained for free from the semantic definitions; in our experience in just the few weeks required to define a language’s semantics even for large languages like Java. By combining, yet distinguishing, both equations and rules, rewriting logic semantic definitions unify both the semantic equations of equational semantics (in their higher-order denotational version or their first-order algebraic counterpart) and the semantic rules of SOS. Several limitations of both SOS and equational semantics are thus overcome within this unified framework. By using a high-performance implementation of rewriting logic such as Maude, a language’s formal specification can be automatically transformed into an efficient interpreter. Furthermore, by using Maude’s breadth first search command, we also obtain for free a semi-decision procedure for finding failures of safety properties; and by using Maude’s LTL model checker, we obtain, also for free, a decision procedure for LTL properties of finite-state programs. These possibilities, and the competitive performance of the analysis tools thus obtained, are illustrated by means of a concurrent Caml-like language; similar experience with Java (source and JVM) programs is also summarized.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

    José Meseguer & Grigore Roşu

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  1. José Meseguer
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  2. Grigore Roşu
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  1. Information Security Group, Dep. of Computer Science, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland

    David Basin

  2. LORIA & INRIA Lorraine UMR 7503,  

    Michaël Rusinowitch

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Meseguer, J., Roşu, G. (2004). Rewriting Logic Semantics: From Language Specifications to Formal Analysis Tools. In: Basin, D., Rusinowitch, M. (eds) Automated Reasoning. IJCAR 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3097. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25984-8_1

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