A refinement calculus for logic programs


Autoria(s): Hayes, Ian; Colvin, Robert; Hemer, David; Strooper, Paul; Nickson, Ray
Data(s)

01/01/2002

Resumo

Existing refinement calculi provide frameworks for the stepwise development of imperative programs from specifications. This paper presents a refinement calculus for deriving logic programs. The calculus contains a wide-spectrum logic programming language, including executable constructs such as sequential conjunction, disjunction, and existential quantification, as well as specification constructs such as general predicates, assumptions and universal quantification. A declarative semantics is defined for this wide-spectrum language based on executions. Executions are partial functions from states to states, where a state is represented as a set of bindings. The semantics is used to define the meaning of programs and specifications, including parameters and recursion. To complete the calculus, a notion of correctness-preserving refinement over programs in the wide-spectrum language is defined and refinement laws for developing programs are introduced. The refinement calculus is illustrated using example derivations and prototype tool support is discussed.

Identificador

http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:62137

Idioma(s)

eng

Publicador

Cambridge University Press

Palavras-Chave #Refinement Calculus #Logic Programming #Computer Science, Software Engineering #Computer Science, Theory & Methods #C1 #280302 Software Engineering #700199 Computer software and services not elsewhere classified
Tipo

Journal Article