Topics
In the remainder of the course, we shall give semantics to the simple
language While (and some of its possible extensions) using the
different types of semantic descriptions we introduced in lecture 8. The reason for using the language
While to introduce semantics is that it is a simple, yet
expressive, language which can be used to highlight the foundational
principles, and most important ideas, underlying operational,
denotational and axiomatic semantics.
In this lecture, we begin our semantic analysis of While by
offering two operational semantics for its statements. We shall
describe a natural and a structural operational
semantics for While, and discuss what these two (equivalent,
but different) semantics tell us about the behaviour of statements.
Should you be interested in seeing how easy it is to implement natural
and structural operational semantics for our example language, you may
wish to look at the Miranda implementations of evaluation
of expressions, and of the natural
and structural operational semantics. (Courtesy of Hanne Riis Nielson and Flemming Nielson.)
Time and Location
Monday, 6 December, 2004 at 9:00 in room 303.
Reading Material
Exercises
- Exercises 2.3(*), 2.4, 2.7(*), 2.10, 2.16, 2.17(*) in Hanne Riis Nielson, Flemming Nielson: Semantics with
Applications: A Formal Introduction. Wiley Professional
Computing, (240 pages, ISBN 0 471 92980 8), Wiley, 1992.
- For the Keenest: Exercises 2.8 and 2.18 in Hanne Riis Nielson, Flemming Nielson: Semantics with
Applications: A Formal Introduction. Wiley Professional
Computing, (240 pages, ISBN 0 471 92980 8), Wiley, 1992.