A Virtual Machine for Supporting Reversible Probabilistic Guarded Command Languages

Authors:
Bill Stoddart;Robert Lynas;Frank Zeyda
Affiliations:
School of Computing, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, UK;School of Computing, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, UK;High Integrity Systems Engineering Group, Department of Computer Science, University of York, UK
Venue:
Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (ENTCS)
Year:
2010

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Abstract

We describe a reversible stack based virtual machine designed as an execution platform for a sequential programming language used in a formal development environment. We revoke Dijkstra's ''law of the excluded miracle'' to obtain a formal description of backtracking through the use of naked guarded commands and non-deterministic choice, with an operational interpretation of the interaction between guards and choice provided by reversibility. Other constructs supported by the machine provide for the collection of all results of a search, a semantically clean ''cut'' which terminates a search when the accumulated results satisfy some given criteria, and forms of probabilistic choice, which we distinguish from non-deterministic choice. The paper includes a number of example programs.