License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY 3.0)
When quoting this document, please refer to the following
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FSCD.2016.28
URN: urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-59841
URL: http://dagstuhl.sunsite.rwth-aachen.de/volltexte/2016/5984/
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Nishida, Naoki ; Palacios, Adrián ; Vidal, Germán

Reversible Term Rewriting

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LIPIcs-FSCD-2016-28.pdf (0.6 MB)

Abstract

Essentially, in a reversible programming language, for each forward
computation step from state S to state S', there exists a
constructive and deterministic method to go backwards from state S'
to state S. Besides its theoretical interest, reversible
computation is a fundamental concept which is relevant in many
different areas like cellular automata, bidirectional program
transformation, or quantum computing, to name a few. In this paper,
we focus on term rewriting, a computation model that underlies most
rule-based programming languages. In general, term rewriting is not
reversible, even for injective functions; namely, given a rewrite step
t1 -> t2, we do not always have a decidable and deterministic
method to get t1 from t2. Here, we introduce a conservative
extension of term rewriting that becomes reversible. Furthermore, we
also define a transformation to make a rewrite system reversible using
standard term rewriting.

BibTeX - Entry

@InProceedings{nishida_et_al:LIPIcs:2016:5984,
  author =	{Naoki Nishida and Adri{\'a}n Palacios and Germ{\'a}n Vidal},
  title =	{{Reversible Term Rewriting}},
  booktitle =	{1st International Conference on Formal Structures for Computation and Deduction (FSCD 2016)},
  pages =	{28:1--28:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-010-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2016},
  volume =	{52},
  editor =	{Delia Kesner and Brigitte Pientka},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl--Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2016/5984},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-59841},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FSCD.2016.28},
  annote =	{Keywords: term rewriting, reversible computation, program transformation}
}

Keywords: term rewriting, reversible computation, program transformation
Collection: 1st International Conference on Formal Structures for Computation and Deduction (FSCD 2016)
Issue Date: 2016
Date of publication: 17.06.2016

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