A Complete, Co-Inductive Syntactic Theory of Sequential Control and State

Authors

  • Kristian Støvring
  • Søren B. Lassen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/brics.v14i4.21927

Abstract

We present a new co-inductive syntactic theory, eager normal form bisimilarity, for the untyped call-by-value lambda calculus extended with continuations and mutable references.

We demonstrate that the associated bisimulation proof principle is easy to use and that it is a powerful tool for proving equivalences between recursive imperative higher-order programs.

The theory is modular in the sense that eager normal form bisimilarity for each of the calculi extended with continuations and/or mutable references is a fully abstract extension of eager normal form bisimilarity for its sub-calculi. For each calculus, we prove that eager normal form bisimilarity is a congruence and is sound with respect to contextual equivalence. Furthermore, for the calculus with both continuations and mutable references, we show that eager normal form bisimilarity is complete: it coincides with contextual equivalence.

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Published

2007-02-12

How to Cite

Støvring, K., & Lassen, S. B. (2007). A Complete, Co-Inductive Syntactic Theory of Sequential Control and State. BRICS Report Series, 14(4). https://doi.org/10.7146/brics.v14i4.21927