. This paper surveys the work of many researchers on rewriting logic since it was first introduced in 1990. The main emphasis is on the use of rewriting logic as a semantic framework for concurrency. The goal in this regard is to express as faithfully as possible a very wide range of concurrency models, each on its own terms, avoiding any encodings or translations. Bringing very different models under a common semantic framework makes easier to understand what different models have in common and how they differ, to find deep connections between them, and to reason across their different formalisms. It becomes also much easier to achieve in a rigorous way the integration and interoperation of different models and languages whose combination offers attractive advantages. The logic and model theory of rewriting logic are also summarized, a number of current research directions are surveyed, and some concluding remarks about future directions are made. Table of Contents 1 In...

Combinatory Reduction Systems, or CRSs for short, were designed to combine the usual first-order format of term rewriting with the presence of bound variables as in pure -calculus and various typed -calculi. Bound variables are also present in many other rewrite systems, such as systems with simplification rules for proof normalization. The original idea of CRSs is due to Aczel, who introduced a restricted class of CRSs and, under the assumption of orthogonality, proved confluence. Orthogonality means that the rules are non-ambiguous (no overlap leading to a critical pair) and left-linear (no global comparison of terms necessary). We introduce the class of orthogonal CRSs, illustrated with many examples, discuss its expressive power, and give an outline of a short proof of confluence. This proof is a direct generalization of Aczel's original proof, which is close to the well-known confluence proof for -calculus by Tait and Martin-Lof. There is a well-known connection between the para...

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We introduce a new class of higher order rewriting systems, called Interaction Systems (IS's). IS's come from Lafont's (Intuitionistic) Interaction Nets [Lafont 1990] by dropping the linearity constraint. In particular, we borrow from Interaction Nets the syntactical bipartitions of operators into constructors and destructors and the principle of binary interaction. As a consequence, IS's are a subclass of Klop's Combinatory Reduction Systems [Klop 1980] where the Curry-Howard analogy still "makes sense". Destructors and constructors respectively corresponds to left and right logical introduction rules, interaction is cut and reduction is cut-elimination. Interaction Systems have been primarily motivated by the necessity of extending the practice of optimal evaluators for -calculus [Lamping 1990, Gonthier et al. 1992a] to other computational constructs as conditionals and recursion. In this paper we focus on the theoretical aspects of optimal reductions. In particular, we ge...

Rewriting logic expresses an essential equivalence between logic and computation. System states are in bijective correspondence with formulas, and concurrent computations are in bijective correspondence with proofs. Given this equivalence between computation and logic, a rewriting logic axiom of the form t \Gamma! t 0 has two readings. Computationally, it means that a fragment of a system 's state that is an instance of the pattern t can change to the corresponding instance of t 0 concurrently with any other state changes; logically, it just means that we can derive the formula t 0 from the formula t. Rewriting logic is entirely neutral about the structure and properties of the formulas/states t. They are entirely user-definable as an algebraic data type satisfying certain equational axioms. Because of this ecumenical neutrality, rewriting logic has, from a logical viewpoint, good properties as a logical framework, in which many other logics can be naturally represented. And, computationally, it has also good properties as a semantic framework, in which many different system styles and models of concurrent computation and many different languages can be naturally expressed without any distorting encodings. The goal of this paper is to provide a relatively gentle introduction to rewriting logic, and to paint in broad strokes the main research directions that, since its introduction in 1990, have been pursued by a growing number of researchers in Europe, the US, and Japan. Key theoretical developments, as well as the main current applications of rewriting logic as a logical and semantic framework, and the work on formal reasoning to prove properties of specifications are surveyed.

. We define Higher Order Recursive Program Schemes (HRPSs) by allowing metasubstitutions (as in the -calculus) in righthand sides of function and quantifier definitions. A study of several kinds of similarity of redexes makes it possible to lift properties of (first order) Recursive Program Schemes to the higher order case. The main result is the decidability of weak normalization in HRPSs, which immediately implies that HRPSs do not have full computational power. We analyze the structural properties of HRPSs and introduce several kinds of persistent expression reduction systems (PERSs) that enjoy similar properties. Finally, we design an optimal evaluation procedure for PERSs. 1 Introduction Higher Order Recursive Program Schemes (HRPSs) are recursive definitions of functions, predicates, and quantifiers, considered as rewriting systems. Similar definitions are used when one extends a theory by introducing new symbols [16]. 9aA , (øa(A)=a)A and 9!aA , 9aA 8a8b(A (b=a)A ) a = b) a...

We consider reductions in Orthogonal Expression Reduction Systems (OERS), that is, Orthogonal Term Rewriting Systems with bound variables and substitutions, as in the -calculus. We design a strategy that for any given term t constructs a longest reduction starting from t if t is strongly normalizable, and constructs an infinite reduction otherwise. The Conservation Theorem for OERSs follows easily from the properties of the strategy. We develop a method for computing the length of a longest reduction starting from a strongly normalizable term. We study properties of pure substitutions and several kinds of similarity of redexes. We apply these results to construct an algorithm for computing lengths of longest reductions in strongly persistent OERSs that does not require actual transformation of the input term. As a corollary, we have an algorithm for computing lengths of longest developments in OERSs. 1 Introduction A strategy is perpetual if, given a term t, it constructs an infinit...

Lamping's optimal graph reduction technique for the -calculus is generalized to a new class of higher order rewriting systems, called Interaction Systems. Interaction Systems provide a nice integration of the functional paradigm with a rich class of data structures (all inductive types), and some basic control flow constructs such as conditionals and (primitive or general) recursion. We describe a uniform and optimal implementation, in Lamping's style, for all these features. The paper is the natural continuation of [3], where we focused on the theoretical aspects of optimal reductions in Interaction Systems (family relation, labeling, extraction). 1 Introduction At the end of 70's, L'evy fixed the theoretical performance of what should be considered as an optimal implementation of the -calculus. The optimal evaluator should always keep shared those redexes in a -expression that have a common origin (e.g. that are copies of a same redex). For a long time, no implementation achieved L'...

This paper will appear in the proceedings of the 10th international conference on rewriting techniques and applications (RTA'99). c flSpringer Verlag.

In this paper two formats of higher-order rewriting are compared: Combinatory Reduction Systems introduced by Klop [Klo80] and Higher-order Rewrite Systems defined by Nipkow [Nipa]. Although it always has been obvious that both formats are closely related to each other, up to now the exact relationship between them has not been clear. This was an unsatisfying situation since it meant that proofs for much related frameworks were given twice. We present two translations, one from Combinatory Reduction Systems into Higher-Order Rewrite Systems and one vice versa, based on a detailed comparison of both formats. Since the translations are very `neat' in the sense that the rewrite relation is preserved and (almost) reflected, we can conclude that as far as rewrite theory is concerned, Combinatory Reduction Systems and Higher-Order Rewrite Systems are equivalent, the only difference being that Combinatory Reduction Systems employ a more `lazy' evaluation strategy. Moreover, due to this result...