Describing Relationships
For a variety of reasons, one might wish to describe the relationships between different formal semantics. For example:
- To prove that a particular operational semantics for a language satisfies the logical formulas of an axiomatic semantics for that language. Such a proof demonstrates that it is "sound" to reason about a particular (operational) interpretation strategy using a particular (axiomatic) proof system.
- To prove that operational semantics over a high-level machine is related by a bisimulation with the semantics over a low-level machine, whereby the low-level abstract machine contains more primitive operations than the high-level abstract machine definition of a given language. Such a proof demonstrates that the low-level machine "faithfully implements" the high-level machine.
It is also possible to relate multiple semantics through abstractions via the theory of abstract interpretation.
Read more about this topic: Semantics (computer Science)
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