Program Transformation by Templates: A Rewriting Framework

Abstract

We propose a framework in this paper for transforming programs with templates based on term rewriting. The programs are given by term rewriting systems. We discuss how to validate the correctness of program transformation within our framework. We introduce a notion of developed templates and a simple method of constructing such templates without explicit use of induction. We then show that in any transformation of programs using the developed templates, their correctness can be verified automatically. The correctness of program transformation within our framework is discussed based on operational semantics. We also present some examples of program transformations in our framework.