Compiling Exceptions Correctly

Exceptions are an important feature of modern programming languages, but their compilation has traditionally been viewed as an advanced topic. In this article we show that the basic method of compiling exceptions using stack unwinding can be explained and verified both simply and precisely, using elementary functional programming techniques. In particular, we develop a compiler for a small language with exceptions, together with a proof of its correctness.

Proof methods for structured corecursive programs

Corecursive programs produce values of greatest fixpoint types, in contrast to recursive programs, which consume values of least fixpoint types. There are a number of widely used methods for proving properties of corecursive programs, including fixpoint induction, the take lemma, and coinduction. However, these methods are all rather low level, in that they do not exploit the common structure that is often present in corecursive definitions. We argue for a more structured approach to proving properties of corecursive programs. In particular, we show that by writing corecursive programs using a simple operator that encapsulates a common pattern of corecursive definition, we can then use high-level algebraic properties of this operator to conduct proofs in a purely calculational style that avoids the use of inductive or coinductive methods.