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Program Construction pp 100–112Cite as

The multiple assignment statement

  • II. Program Verification
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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 69))

Abstract

The conventional axiomatic definitions are given for multiple assignment to simple variables and for assignment to a single subscripted variable, along with examples to illustrate their use. The original contributions of this paper are the extension of the definition to include multiple assignment to several subscripted variables, and the development of a nontrivial, practical algorithm in which multiple assignment to several subscripted variables is indeed useful. Arguments are given to support the conjecture that the use of subscripted variables, like the use of pointers, can lead to exponential explosion of the length of a proof (and thus of the time needed to understand a program) unless the programmer is careful.

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References

  1. E.W. Dijkstra, A Discipline of Programming. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976.

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  2. D. Gries, Assignment to subscripted variables, Computer Science Department, Cornell University, Tech. Rep. 77–305, Sept. 1976.

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  3. C.A.R. Hoare, An axiomatic approach to computer programming, CACM 12 (Oct 69), 576–580, 583.

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  4. C.A.R. Hoare and N. Wirth, An axiomatic definition of the programming language PASCAL, Acta Informatica 2 (1973), 335–355.

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  5. D.E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming, vol. 3. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1973.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cornell University, USA

    David Gries

Authors
  1. David Gries
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Editor information

Friedrich L. Bauer Manfred Broy E. W. Dijkstra S. L. Gerhart D. Gries M. Griffiths J. V. Guttag J. J. Horning S. S. Owicki C. Pair H. Partsch P. Pepper M. Wirsing H. Wössner

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© 1979 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Gries, D. (1979). The multiple assignment statement. In: Bauer, F.L., et al. Program Construction. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 69. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0014663

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0014663

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-09251-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-35312-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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