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arXiv · 1703.02312

The Formal Semantics of Rascal Light

Ahmad Salim Al-Sibahi
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Abstract

Rascal is a high-level transformation language that aims to simplify software language engineering tasks like defining program syntax, analyzing and transforming programs, and performing code generation. The language provides several features including built-in collections (lists, sets, maps), algebraic data-types, powerful pattern matching operations with backtracking, and high-level traversals supporting multiple strategies. Interaction between different language features can be difficult to comprehend, since most features are semantically rich. The report provides a well-defined formal semantics for a large subset of Rascal, called Rascal Light, suitable for developing formal techniques, e.g., type systems and static analyses. Additionally, the report states and proofs a series of interesting properties of the semantics, including purity of backtracking, strong typing, partial progress and the existence of a terminating subset.

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Ahmad Salim Al-Sibahi. 2017-03-07. The Formal Semantics of Rascal Light. https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02312

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