On 01/02/2009, at 8:49 PM, Devin Mullins wrote:
I'm reading SPJ's "The Implementation of Functional Programming
Languages," and
on page 32, it defines the multiplication operator in its extended
lambda
calculus as:
Eval[[ * ]] a b = a x b
Eval[[ * ]] _|_ b = _|_
Eval[[ * ]] a _|_ = _|_
Is that complete? What are the denotational semantics of * applied
to things
not in the domain of the multiplication operator x, such as TRUE (in
the
extended lambda defined by this book) and functions (in normal
lambda calc)? Do
these things just eval to bottom? Or is this just to be ignored,
since the
extended calculus will only be applied to properly "typed"
expressions in the
context of this book?
Hi Devin,
I don't think that the section of the book in question is intended to
be rigorous. (page 30. "this account is greatly simplified").
As noted in the text, the domain of values produced by Eval is not
specified, so it is hard to be precise (though there is a reference to
Scott's Domain Theory).
However, I agree with you that the equation for multiplication looks
under-specified. Obviously any reasonable domain will include (non-
bottom) values on which multiplication is not defined. Without any
explicit quantification, it is hard to say what values 'a' and 'b'
range over. It is possible that they range over the entire domain, or
some proper subset. The text also assumes we all agree on the
definition of the 'x' (multiplication) function. Though it ought to be
specified in a more rigorous exposition.
As you suggest, it may be possible to work around this by imposing
some kind of typing restriction to the language, though this does not
appear to be stated in this particular section of the book. Perhaps
this is mentioned elsewhere; I have not checked.
Another possible solution is to sweep it all into the definition of
the 'x' function. But if that were so, why bother handling bottom
explicitly, but not the other possible cases?
I guess the best we can say is that the meaning of multiplication
applied to non-bottom non-numeric arguments is not defined (in this
section of the text).
Cheers,
Bernie.
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