arXiv subjects

Frédéric Blanqui

Publications and source records attributed to Frédéric Blanqui.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Inductive-data-type Systems

In a previous work ("Abstract Data Type Systems", TCS 173(2), 1997), the last two authors presented a combined language made of a (strongly normalizing) algebraic rewrite system and a typed lambda-calculus enriched by pattern-matching definitions following a certain format, called the "General Schema", which generalizes the usual recursor definitions for natural numbers and similar "basic inductive types". This combined language was shown to be strongly normalizing. The purpose of this paper is to reformulate and extend the General Schema in order to make it easily extensible, to capture a more general class of inductive types, called "strictly positive", and to ease the strong normalization proof of the resulting system. This result provides a computation model for the combination of an algebraic specification language based on abstract data types and of a strongly typed functional language with strictly positive inductive types.

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arXiv2012

Automated verification of termination certificates

In order to increase user confidence, many automated theorem provers provide certificates that can be independently verified. In this paper, we report on our progress in developing a standalone tool for checking the correctness of certificates for the termination of term rewrite systems, and formally proving its correctness in the proof assistant Coq. To this end, we use the extraction mechanism of Coq and the library on rewriting theory and termination called CoLoR.

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arXiv2012

First steps towards the certification of an ARM simulator using Compcert

The simulation of Systems-on-Chip (SoC) is nowadays a hot topic because, beyond providing many debugging facilities, it allows the development of dedicated software before the hardware is available. Low-consumption CPUs such as ARM play a central role in SoC. However, the effectiveness of simulation depends on the faithfulness of the simulator. To this effect, we propose here to prove significant parts of such a simulator, SimSoC. Basically, on one hand, we develop a Coq formal model of the ARM architecture while on the other hand, we consider a version of the simulator including components written in Compcert-C. Then we prove that the simulation of ARM operations, according to Compcert-C formal semantics, conforms to the expected formal model of ARM. Size issues are partly dealt with using automatic generation of significant parts of the Coq model and of SimSoC from the official textual definition of ARM. However, this is still a long-term project. We report here the current stage of our efforts and discuss in particular the use of Compcert-C in this framework.

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arXiv2012

CoLoR: a Coq library on well-founded rewrite relations and its application to the automated verification of termination certificates

Termination is an important property of programs; notably required for programs formulated in proof assistants. It is a very active subject of research in the Turing-complete formalism of term rewriting systems, where many methods and tools have been developed over the years to address this problem. Ensuring reliability of those tools is therefore an important issue. In this paper we present a library formalizing important results of the theory of well-founded (rewrite) relations in the proof assistant Coq. We also present its application to the automated verification of termination certificates, as produced by termination tools.

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arXiv2011

Static Dependency Pair Method based on Strong Computability for Higher-Order Rewrite Systems

Higher-order rewrite systems (HRSs) and simply-typed term rewriting systems (STRSs) are computational models of functional programs. We recently proposed an extremely powerful method, the static dependency pair method, which is based on the notion of strong computability, in order to prove termination in STRSs. In this paper, we extend the method to HRSs. Since HRSs include λ-abstraction but STRSs do not, we restructure the static dependency pair method to allow λ-abstraction, and show that the static dependency pair method also works well on HRSs without new restrictions.

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arXiv2011

Designing a CPU model: from a pseudo-formal document to fast code

For validating low level embedded software, engineers use simulators that take the real binary as input. Like the real hardware, these full-system simulators are organized as a set of components. The main component is the CPU simulator (ISS), because it is the usual bottleneck for the simulation speed, and its development is a long and repetitive task. Previous work showed that an ISS can be generated from an Architecture Description Language (ADL). In the work reported in this paper, we generate a CPU simulator directly from the pseudo-formal descriptions of the reference manual. For each instruction, we extract the information describing its behavior, its binary encoding, and its assembly syntax. Next, after automatically applying many optimizations on the extracted information, we generate a SystemC/TLM ISS. We also generate tests for the decoder and a formal specification in Coq. Experiments show that the generated ISS is as fast and stable as our previous hand-written ISS.

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arXiv2011

Argument filterings and usable rules in higher-order rewrite systems

The static dependency pair method is a method for proving the termination of higher-order rewrite systems a la Nipkow. It combines the dependency pair method introduced for first-order rewrite systems with the notion of strong computability introduced for typed lambda-calculi. Argument filterings and usable rules are two important methods of the dependency pair framework used by current state-of-the-art first-order automated termination provers. In this paper, we extend the class of higher-order systems on which the static dependency pair method can be applied. Then, we extend argument filterings and usable rules to higher-order rewriting, hence providing the basis for a powerful automated termination prover for higher-order rewrite systems.

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arXiv2011

On the confluence of lambda-calculus with conditional rewriting

The confluence of untyped λ-calculus with unconditional rewriting is now well un- derstood. In this paper, we investigate the confluence of λ-calculus with conditional rewriting and provide general results in two directions. First, when conditional rules are algebraic. This extends results of Müller and Dougherty for unconditional rewriting. Two cases are considered, whether β-reduction is allowed or not in the evaluation of conditions. Moreover, Dougherty's result is improved from the assumption of strongly normalizing β-reduction to weakly normalizing β-reduction. We also provide examples showing that outside these conditions, modularity of confluence is difficult to achieve. Second, we go beyond the algebraic framework and get new confluence results using a restricted notion of orthogonality that takes advantage of the conditional part of rewrite rules.

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arXiv2009

On the relation between size-based termination and semantic labelling

We investigate the relationship between two independently developed termination techniques. On the one hand, sized-types based termination (SBT) uses types annotated with size expressions and Girard's reducibility candidates, and applies on systems using constructor matching only. On the other hand, semantic labelling transforms a rewrite system by annotating each function symbol with the semantics of its arguments, and applies to any rewrite system. First, we introduce a simplified version of SBT for the simply-typed lambda-calculus. Then, we give new proofs of the correctness of SBT using semantic labelling, both in the first and in the higher-order case. As a consequence, we show that SBT can be extended to systems using matching on defined symbols (e.g. associative functions).

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arXiv2008

The computability path ordering: the end of a quest

In this paper, we first briefly survey automated termination proof methods for higher-order calculi. We then concentrate on the higher-order recursive path ordering, for which we provide an improved definition, the Computability Path Ordering. This new definition appears indeed to capture the essence of computability arguments à la Tait and Girard, therefore explaining the name of the improved ordering.

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arXiv2008

The Calculus of Algebraic Constructions

This paper is concerned with the foundations of the Calculus of Algebraic Constructions (CAC), an extension of the Calculus of Constructions by inductive data types. CAC generalizes inductive types equipped with higher-order primitive recursion, by providing definitions of functions by pattern-matching which capture recursor definitions for arbitrary non-dependent and non-polymorphic inductive types satisfying a strictly positivity condition. CAC also generalizes the first-order framework of abstract data types by providing dependent types and higher-order rewrite rules.

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arXiv2008

From formal proofs to mathematical proofs: a safe, incremental way for building in first-order decision procedures

We investigate here a new version of the Calculus of Inductive Constructions (CIC) on which the proof assistant Coq is based: the Calculus of Congruent Inductive Constructions, which truly extends CIC by building in arbitrary first-order decision procedures: deduction is still in charge of the CIC kernel, while computation is outsourced to dedicated first-order decision procedures that can be taken from the shelves provided they deliver a proof certificate. The soundness of the whole system becomes an incremental property following from the soundness of the certificate checkers and that of the kernel. A detailed example shows that the resulting style of proofs becomes closer to that of the working mathematician.

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arXiv2007

HORPO with Computability Closure : A Reconstruction

This paper provides a new, decidable definition of the higher- order recursive path ordering in which type comparisons are made only when needed, therefore eliminating the need for the computability clo- sure, and bound variables are handled explicitly, making it possible to handle recursors for arbitrary strictly positive inductive types.

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arXiv2007

Computability Closure: Ten Years Later

The notion of computability closure has been introduced for proving the termination of higher-order rewriting with first-order matching by Jean-Pierre Jouannaud and Mitsuhiro Okada in a 1997 draft which later served as a basis for the author's PhD. In this paper, we show how this notion can also be used for dealing with beta-normalized rewriting with matching modulo beta-eta (on patterns à la Miller), rewriting with matching modulo some equational theory, and higher-order data types (types with constructors having functional recursive arguments). Finally, we show how the computability closure can easily be turned into a reduction ordering which, in the higher-order case, contains Jean-Pierre Jouannaud and Albert Rubio's higher-order recursive path ordering and, in the first-order case, is equal to the usual first-order recursive path ordering.

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arXiv2007

Building Decision Procedures in the Calculus of Inductive Constructions

It is commonly agreed that the success of future proof assistants will rely on their ability to incorporate computations within deduction in order to mimic the mathematician when replacing the proof of a proposition P by the proof of an equivalent proposition P' obtained from P thanks to possibly complex calculations. In this paper, we investigate a new version of the calculus of inductive constructions which incorporates arbitrary decision procedures into deduction via the conversion rule of the calculus. The novelty of the problem in the context of the calculus of inductive constructions lies in the fact that the computation mechanism varies along proof-checking: goals are sent to the decision procedure together with the set of user hypotheses available from the current context. Our main result shows that this extension of the calculus of constructions does not compromise its main properties: confluence, subject reduction, strong normalization and consistency are all preserved.

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arXiv2007

Type theory and rewriting

We study the properties, in particular termination, of dependent types systems for lambda calculus and rewriting.

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arXiv2007

On the implementation of construction functions for non-free concrete data types

Many algorithms use concrete data types with some additional invariants. The set of values satisfying the invariants is often a set of representatives for the equivalence classes of some equational theory. For instance, a sorted list is a particular representative wrt commutativity. Theories like associativity, neutral element, idempotence, etc. are also very common. Now, when one wants to combine various invariants, it may be difficult to find the suitable representatives and to efficiently implement the invariants. The preservation of invariants throughout the whole program is even more difficult and error prone. Classically, the programmer solves this problem using a combination of two techniques: the definition of appropriate construction functions for the representatives and the consistent usage of these functions ensured via compiler verifications. The common way of ensuring consistency is to use an abstract data type for the representatives; unfortunately, pattern matching on representatives is lost. A more appealing alternative is to define a concrete data type with private constructors so that both compiler verification and pattern matching on representatives are granted. In this paper, we detail the notion of private data type and study the existence of construction functions. We also describe a prototype, called Moca, that addresses the entire problem of...

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arXiv2007

Higher-Order Termination: from Kruskal to Computability

Termination is a major question in both logic and computer science. In logic, termination is at the heart of proof theory where it is usually called strong normalization (of cut elimination). In computer science, termination has always been an important issue for showing programs correct. In the early days of logic, strong normalization was usually shown by assigning ordinals to expressions in such a way that eliminating a cut would yield an expression with a smaller ordinal. In the early days of verification, computer scientists used similar ideas, interpreting the arguments of a program call by a natural number, such as their size. Showing the size of the arguments to decrease for each recursive call gives a termination proof of the program, which is however rather weak since it can only yield quite small ordinals. In the sixties, Tait invented a new method for showing cut elimination of natural deduction, based on a predicate over the set of terms, such that the membership of an expression to the predicate implied the strong normalization property for that expression. The predicate being defined by induction on types, or even as a fixpoint, this method could yield much larger ordinals. Later generalized by Girard under the name of reducibility or computability candidates, it showed very effective in proving the strong normalization property of typed lambda-calculi...

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