Decidability for Left-Linear Growing Term Rewriting Systems

A term rewriting system is called growing if each variable occurring on both the left-hand side and the right-hand side of a rewrite rule occurs at depth zero or one in the left-hand side. Jacquemard showed that the reachability and the sequentiality of linear (i.e., left-right-linear) growing term rewriting systems are decidable. In this paper we show that Jacquemard's result can be extended to left-linear growing rewriting systems that may have right-nonlinear rewrite rules. This implies that the reachability and the joinability of some class of right-linear term rewriting systems are decidable, which improves the results for right-ground term rewriting systems by Oyamaguchi. Our result extends the class of left-linear term rewriting systems having a decidable call-by-need normalizing strategy. Moreover, we prove that the termination property is decidable for almost orthogonal growing term rewriting systems.     

Non-Linear Rewrite Closure and Weak Normalization

A rewrite closure is an extension of a term rewrite system with new rules, usually deduced by transitivity. Rewrite closures have the nice property that all rewrite derivations can be transformed into derivations of a simple form. This property has been useful for proving decidability results in term rewriting. Unfortunately, when the term rewrite system is not linear, the construction of a rewrite closure is quite challenging. In this paper, we construct a rewrite closure for term rewrite systems that satisfy two properties: the right-hand side term in each rewrite rule contains no repeated variable (right-linear) and contains no variable occurring at depth greater than one (right-shallow). The left-hand side term is unrestricted, and in particular, it may be non-linear. As a consequence of the rewrite closure construction, we are able to prove decidability of the weak normalization problem for right-linear right-shallow term rewrite systems. Proving this result also requires tree automata theory. We use the fact that right-shallow right-linear term rewrite systems are regularity preserving. Moreover, their set of normal forms can be represented with a tree automaton with disequality constraints, and emptiness of this kind of automata, as well as its generalization to reduction automata, is decidable. A preliminary version of this work was presented at LICS 2009 (Creus 2009).     

Lifting Infinite Normal Form Definitions From Term Rewriting to Term Graph Rewriting

nfinite normal forms are a way of giving semantics to non-terminating rewrite systems. The notion is a generalization of the Böhm tree in the lambda calculus. It was first introduced in [Ariola, Z. M. and S. Blom, Cyclic lambda calculi, in: Abadi and Ito [Abadi, M. and T. Ito, editors, “Theoretical Aspects of Computer Software,” Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1281, Springer Verlag, 1997], pp. 77–106] to provide semantics for a lambda calculus on terms with letrec. In that paper infinite normal forms were defined directly on the graph rewrite system. In [Blom, S., “Term Graph Rewriting - syntax and semantics,” Ph.D. thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2001)] the framework was improved by defining the infinite normal form of a term graph using the infinite normal form on terms. This approach of lifting the definition makes the non-confluence problems introduced into term graph rewriting by substitution rules much easier to deal with. In this paper, we give a simplified presentation of the latter approach.     

Translating Combinatory Reduction Systems into the Rewriting Calculus

The last few years have seen the development of the rewriting calculus (or rho-calculus, ρCal) that extends first order term rewriting and λ-calculus. The integration of these two latter formalisms has been already handled either by enriching first-order rewriting with higher-order capabilities, like in the Combinatory Reduction Systems, or by adding to λ-calculus algebraic features. The different higher-order rewriting systems and the rewriting calculus share similar concepts and have similar applications, and thus, it seems natural to compare these formalisms. We analyze in this paper the relationship between the Rewriting Calculus and the Combinatory Reduction Systems and we present a translation of CRS-terms and rewrite rules into rho-terms and we show that for any CRS-reduction we have a corresponding rho-reduction.     

An initial algebra approach to term rewriting systems with variable binders

We present an extension of first-order term rewriting systems. It involves variable binding in the term language. We develop systems called binding term rewriting systems (BTRSs) in a stepwise manner. First we present the term language, then formulate equational logic. Finally, we define rewriting systems. This development is novel because we follow the initial algebra approach in an extended notion of Σ-algebras in various functor categories. These are based on Fiore-Plotkin-Turi’s presheaf semantics of variable binding and Lüth-Ghani’s monadic semantics of term rewriting systems. We characterise the terms, equational logic and rewrite systems for BTRSs as initial algebras in suitable categories. Then, we show an important rewriting property of BTRSs: orthogonal BTRSs are confluent. Moreover, by using the initial algebra semantics, we give a complete characterisation of termination of BTRSs. Finally, we discuss our design choice of BTRSs from a semantic perspective. An erlier version appeared in Proc. Fifth ACM-SIGPLAN International Conference on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming (PPDP2003).     

重写系统的模块分解

Ｍｉｄｄｅｌｄｏｒｐ和Ｔｏｙａｍａ证明，强加构造原则到项重写系统可获得完备概念的模块性，并且系统分解成的各部分间可共亨函数符号和重量写规则。本文推广他们的结论，当构造性的项重写系统引用定义在其它系统中的函数符号时，完备概念的模块性仍保持。该结论对代数规范和基于项重写的编程语言等方面是很有意义的。     

Reachability in Conditional Term Rewriting Systems

In this paper, we study the reachability problem for conditional term rewriting systems. Given two ground terms s and t, our practical aim is to prove s _R^* t for some join conditional term rewriting system R (possibly not terminating and not confluent). The proof method we propose relies on an over approximation of reachable terms for unrestricted join conditional term rewriting systems. This approximation is computed using an extension of the tree automata completion algorithm to the conditional case.     

Decidability of the confluence of finite ground term rewrite systems and of other related term rewrite systems

The aim of this paper is to propose an algorithm to decide the confluence of finite ground term rewrite systems. Actually a more general class of possibly infinite ground term rewrite systems is studied. It is well known that the confluence is not decidable for general term rewrite systems, but this paper proves it is for ground term rewrite systems following a conjecture made by Huet and Oppen in their survey. The result is also applied to the confluence of left-linear and right-ground term rewrite systems. We also sketch an algorithm for checking this property. This algorithm is based on tree automata and tree transducers. Here, we regard them as rewrite systems and specialists in automata theory would translate that easily in their language.     

Normalization Results for Typeable Rewrite Systems

In this paper we introduce Curryfied term rewriting systems, and a notion of partial type assignment on terms and rewrite rules that uses intersection types with sorts andω. Three operations on types—substitution, expansion, and lifting—are used to define type assignment and are proved to be sound. With this result the system is proved closed for reduction. Using a more liberal approach to recursion, we define a general scheme for recursive definitions and prove that, for all systems that satisfy this scheme, every term typeable without using the type-constantωis strongly normalizable. We also show that, under certain restrictions, all typeable terms have a (weak) head-normal form, and that terms whose type does not containωare normalizable.     

Rigid tree automata and applications

We introduce the class of rigid tree automata (RTA), an extension of standard bottom-up automata on ranked trees with distinguished states called rigid. Rigid states define a restriction on the computation of RTA on trees: RTA can test for equality in subtrees reaching the same rigid state. RTA are able to perform local and global tests of equality between subtrees, non-linear tree pattern matching, and some inequality and disequality tests as well. Properties like determinism, pumping lemma, Boolean closure, and several decision problems are studied in detail. In particular, the emptiness problem is shown decidable in linear time for RTA whereas membership of a given tree to the language of a given RTA is NP-complete. Our main result is the decidability of whether a given tree belongs to the rewrite closure of an RTA language under a restricted family of term rewriting systems, whereas this closure is not an RTA language. This result, one of the first on rewrite closure of languages of tree automata with constraints, is enabling the extension of model checking procedures based on finite tree automata techniques, in particular for the verification of communicating processes with several local non-rewritable memories, like security protocols. Finally, a comparison of RTA with several classes of tree automata with local and global equality tests, with dag automata and Horn clause formalisms is also provided.     

A class of confluent term rewriting systems and unification

The narrowing mechanism and term rewriting systems are powerful tools for constructing complete and efficient unification algorithms for useful classes of equational theories. This has been shown for the case where term rewriting systems are confluent and noetherian (i.e., terminating). In this paper we show that the narrowing mechanism, combined with ordinary unification, yields a complete unification algorithm for equational theories that can be described by a closed linear term rewriting system with the non-repetition property; this class allows non-terminating rewrite systems. For some special forms of input terms, narrowing generates complete sets of E-unifiers without resorting to the non-repetition property. The key observation underlying the proof is that a reduction sequence in this class of term rewriting system can be transformed into one which possesses properties that enable a completeness proof.     

Tree automata with equality constraints modulo equational theories

This paper presents new classes of tree automata combining automata with equality test and automata modulo equational theories. We believe that these classes have a good potential for application in e.g. software verification. These tree automata are obtained by extending the standard Horn clause representations with equational conditions and rewrite systems. We show in particular that a generalized membership problem (extending the emptiness problem) is decidable by proving that the saturation of tree automata presentations with suitable paramodulation strategies terminates. Alternatively our results can be viewed as new decidable classes of first-order formula.     

Efficient Broadcast in Heterogeneous Networks of Workstations Using Two Sub-Networks

This paper presents efficient algorithms for broadcasting on heterogeneous switch-based networks of workstations (HNOW) by two partitioned sub-networks. In an HNOW, many multiple speed types of workstations have different send and receive overheads. Previous research has found that routing by two sub-networks in a NOW can significantly increase system’s performance (Proc. 10th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks, pp. 68–73, 2001). Similarly, EBS and VBBS (Proc. 8th IEEE International Symposium on Computer and Communication, pp. 1277–1284, (2003)), designed by applying the concept of fastest nodes first, can be executed in O(nlog(n)) time, where n is the number of workstations. This paper proposes two schemes TWO-EBS and TWO-VBBS for broadcasting in an HNOW. These two schemes divide an HNOW into two sub-networks that are routed concurrently and combine EBS and VBBS to broadcast in an HNOW. Based on simulation results, TWO-VBBS outperforms EBS, VBBS, VBBSWF (Proc. 8th IEEE International Symposium on Computer and Communication, pp. 1277–1284, (2003)), the postorder recursive doubling (Proc. Merged IPPS/SPDP Conference, pp. 358–364, (1998)), and the optimal scheduling tree (Proc. Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, Proc. 15th International (2001)) generated by dynamic programming in an HNOW.     

Goto and Concurrency Introducing Safe Jumps in Esterel

Esterel is a design language for the specification of real time embedded systems. Based on the synchronous concurrency paradigm, its semantics describes execution as a succession of instants of computation. In this work, we consider the introduction of a new gotopause instruction in the language, which acts as a non-instantaneous jump instruction compatible with concurrency. It allows the programmer to activate state control points anywhere in the program, from where the execution is resumed in the next instant. In order to provide the formal semantics of the extended language, we first define a state semantics of Esterel, which we prove observationally equivalent to the original logical behavioral semantics. Including gotopause in the state semantics is then straightforward. We sketch two key applications of our new primitive: a direct encoding of automata and a quasi-linear rewriting of programs eliminating schizophrenic behaviors.     

Descendants of a recognizable tree language for sets of linear monadic term rewrite rules

For a tree language L and a set S of term rewrite rules over Σ, the descendant of L for S is the set S^∗(L) of trees reachable from a tree in L by rewriting in S. For a recognizable tree language L, we study the set D(L) of descendants of L for all sets of linear monadic term rewrite rules over Σ. We show that D(L) is finite. For each tree automaton A over Σ, we can effectively construct a set {R₁,…,Rk} of linear monadic term rewrite systems over Σ such that and for any 1?i<j?k, .     

Formal Proofs About Rewriting Using ACL2

We present an application of the ACL2 theorem prover to reason about rewrite systems theory. We describe the formalization and representation aspects of our work using the first-order, quantifier-free logic of ACL2 and we sketch some of the main points of the proof effort. First, we present a formalization of abstract reduction systems and then we show how this abstraction can be instantiated to establish results about term rewriting. The main theorems we mechanically proved are Newman's lemma (for abstract reductions) and Knuth–Bendix critical pair theorem (for term rewriting).     

The context-splittable normal form for Church–Rosser language systems

In this paper the context-splittable normal form for rewriting systems defining Church–Rosser languages is introduced. Context-splittable rewriting rules look like rules of context-sensitive grammars with swapped sides. To be more precise, they have the form uvw→uxw with u,v,w being words, v being nonempty and x being a single letter or the empty word. It is proved that this normal form can be achieved for each Church–Rosser language and that the construction is effective. Some interesting consequences of this characterization are given, too.     

An implementation of syntax directed functional programming on nested-stack machines

This paper contributes to the field of functional programming languages. We investigate the call-by-name and call-by-need implementation of a restricted type of functional programming, calledsyntax directed functional programming; the target of this implementation is an abstract machine that is based on nested stacks. In fact, the technical kernel of this paper is a refinement of an automata theoretical result that, roughly speaking, investigates the well-known relationship recursion = iteration + stack in the framework of tree transducers. More precisely, in the underlying result the class of functions computed by total deterministic macro tree-to-string transducers with the call-by-name computation strategy is characterized by total deterministic checking-tree nested-stack transducers. Note that total deterministic macro tree-to-string transducers are term rewriting systems by means of which the reduction semantics of syntax directed functional programming languages can be described.The work of this author has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).     

Formalizing and Analyzing the Needham-Schroeder Symmetric-Key Protocol by Rewriting

This paper reports on work in progress on using rewriting techniques for the specification and the verification of communication protocols. As in Genet and Klay's approach to formalizing protocols, a rewrite system describes the steps of the protocol and an intruder's ability of decomposing and decrypting messages, and a tree automaton encodes the initial set of communication requests and an intruder's initial knowledge. In a previous work we have defined a rewriting strategy that, given a term t that represents a property of the protocol to be proved, suitably expands and reduces t using the rules in and the transitions in to derive whether or not t is recognized by an intruder. In this paper we present a formalization of the Needham-Schroeder symmetric-key protocol and use the rewriting strategy for deriving two well-known authentication attacks.     

Approximations for Strategies and Termination

The theorem of Huet and Lévy stating that for orthogonal rewrite systems (i) every reducible term contains a needed redex and (ii) repeated contraction of needed redexes results in a normal form if the term under consideration has a normal form, forms the basis of all results on optimal normalizing strategies for orthogonal rewrite systems. However, needed redexes are not computable in general.

In the paper we illustrate, based on the framework introduced in [6], how the use of approximations and their associated tree automata results allows one to obtain decidable conditions in a simple and elegant way.

We further show how the very same ideas can be used to improve [18] the dependency pair method of Arts and Giesl [1] for proving termination of rewrite systems automatically. More precisely, we show how approximations and tree automata techniques provide a better estimation of the dependency graph. This graph determines the ordering constraints that have to be solved in order to conclude termination. Furthermore, we present a new estimation of the dependency graph that does not rely on computationally expensive tree automata techniques.