Abstract
A partial evaluator, given a program and a known “static” part of its input data, outputs a residual program in which computations depending only on the static data have been precomputed [3]. The ideal is a “black box” which discovers and performs nontrivial static computations whenever possible, and never fails to terminate. Practical partial evaluators fall short of this goal: they sometimes loop (typical of functional programing partial evaluation), or terminate but are excessively conservative (typical in partial deduction 1). This paper presents efficient algorithms (being implemented) for binding-time analysis for off-line specialisers. They ensure that the specialiser performs many nontrivial static computations, and are at the same time guaranteed to terminate.
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Glenstrup, A.J., Jones, N.D. (1996). BTA Algorithms to ensure termination of off-line partial evaluation. In: Bjørner, D., Broy, M., Pottosin, I.V. (eds) Perspectives of System Informatics. PSI 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1181. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62064-8_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62064-8_23
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