. A general construction of models of call-by-value from models of call-by-name computation is described. The construction makes essential use of the properties of sum types in common denotational models of call-by-name. When applied to categories of games, it yields fully abstract models of the call-by-value functional language PCFv , which can be extended to incorporate recursive types, and of a language with local references as in Standard ML. 1 Introduction In recent years game semantics has emerged as a novel and intuitively appealing approach to modelling programming languages. Its first success was in providing a syntax-free description of a fully abstract model of PCF [10, 1, 15]; full abstraction results have also been obtained for untyped and recursively typed functional languages, as well as languages with imperative features [12, 3]. However, none of this work addressed the problem of modelling call-by-value languages---a major shortcoming, given that many real-life langua...

This paper considers the consequences of relaxing the bracketing condition on `dialogue games', showing that this leads to a category of games which can be `factorized' into a well-bracketed substructure, and a set of classically typed morphisms. These are shown to be sound denotations for control operators, allowing the factorization to be used to extend the definability result for PCF to one for PCF with control operators at atomic types. Thus we define a fully abstract and effectively presentable model of a functional language with non-local control as part of a modular approach to modelling non-functional features using games. 1.

. We present a general semantic universe of call-by-value computation based on elements of game semantics, and validate its appropriateness as a semantic universe by the full abstraction result for call-by-value PCF, a generic typed programming language with call-by-value evaluation. The key idea is to consider the distinction between call-by-name and call-by-value as that of the structure of information flow, which determines the basic form of games. In this way the call-by-name computation and call-by-value computation arise as two independent instances of sequential functional computation with distinct algebraic structures. We elucidate the type structures of the universe following the standard categorical framework developed in the context of domain theory. Mutual relationship between the presented category of games and the corresponding call-by-name universe is also clarified. 1. Introduction The call-by-value is a mode of calling procedures widely used in imperative and function...

Introduction SAMSON ABRAMSKY (samson@comlab.ox.ac.uk) Oxford University Computing Laboratory 1. Introduction Game Semantics has emerged as a powerful paradigm for giving semantics to a variety of programming languages and logical systems. It has been used to construct the first syntax-independent fully abstract models for a spectrum of programming languages ranging from purely functional languages to languages with non-functional features such as control operators and locally-scoped references [4, 21, 5, 19, 2, 22, 17, 11]. A substantial survey of the state of the art of Game Semantics circa 1997 was given in a previous Marktoberdorf volume [6]. Our aim in this tutorial presentation is to give a first indication of how Game Semantics can be developed in a new, algorithmic direction, with a view to applications in computer-assisted verification and program analysis. Some promising steps have already been taken in this

ion for Idealized Algol with Passive Expressions Samson Abramsky University of Edinburgh Department of Computer Science James Clerk Maxwell Building Edinburgh EH9 3JZ Scotland samson@dcs.ed.ac.uk Guy McCusker St John's College Oxford OX1 3JP, England mccusker@comlab.ox.ac.uk Abstract A fully abstract games model of Reynolds' Idealized Algol is described. The model gives a semantic account of the distinction between active types, such as commands, which admit side-effecting behaviour, and passive types, such as expressions, which do not. Keywords: Algol-like languages, game semantics, full abstraction. 1 Introduction Our aim in this paper is to give the first syntax-independent construction of a fully abstract model for Idealized Algol. John Reynolds proposed Idealized Algol as capturing the essence of Algol 60 [32]; it is an elegant synthesis of the features of a simple block-structured imperative programming language with those of higher-order functional programming. As such it...

This thesis examines the use of denotational semantics to reason about control flow in sequential, basically functional languages. It extends recent work in game semantics, in which programs are interpreted as strategies for computation by interaction with an environment. Abramsky has suggested that an intensional hierarchy of computational features such as state, and their fully abstract models, can be captured as violations of the constraints on strategies in the basic functional model. Non-local control flow is shown to fit into this framework as the violation of strong and weak ‘bracketing ’ conditions, related to linear behaviour. The language µPCF (Parigot’s λµ with constants and recursion) is adopted as a simple basis for higher-type, sequential computation with access to the flow of control. A simple operational semantics for both call-by-name and call-by-value evaluation is described. It is shown that dropping the bracketing condition on games models of PCF yields fully abstract models of µPCF.

Abstract. We explain how recent developments in game semantics can be applied to reasoning about equivalence of terms in a non-trivial fragment of Idealized Algol (IA) by expressing sets of complete plays as regular languages. Being derived directly from the fully abstract game semantics for IA, our method of reasoning inherits its desirable theoretical properties. The method is mathematically elementary and formal, which makes it uniquely suitable for automation. We show that reasoning can be carried out using only a meta-language of extended regular expressions, a language for which equivalence is formally decidable. Keywords: Game semantics, Algol-like languages, regular languages 1

A game semantics of finite nondeterminism is proposed. In this model, a strategy may make a choice between different moves in a given situation; moreover, strategies carry extra information about their possible divergent behaviour. A Cartesian closed category is built and a model of a simple, higher-order nondeterministic imperative language is given. This model is shown to be fully abstract, with respect to an equivalence based on both safety and liveness properties, by means of a factorization theorem which states that every nondeterministic strategy is the composite of a deterministic strategy with a nondeterministic oracle. 1 Introductory remarks Nondeterminism, the notion that the behaviour of a computer system need not be completely determined by the behaviour of its environment, is a valuable abstraction in the analysis of programs. An unreliable hardware component, governed by laws of physics too complex to take into account, can be understood as a nondeterministic entity; mul...

A category of HO/N-style games and probabilistic strategies is developedwhere the possible choices of a strategy are quantified so as to give a measure of the likelihood of seeing a given play. A 2-sided die is shown to be universal in this category, in the sense that any strategy breaks down into a composition between some deterministic strategy and that die. The interpretative power of the category is then demonstrated by delineating a Cartesian closed subcategory which provides a fully abstract model of a probabilistic extension of Idealized Algol.

version) A categorical model for PCF is a map J : ( of c-fix categories.