Technical Report: DCC-98-3
Compiling Process Calculi
Luis Lopes, Fernando Silva and Vasco T. Vasconcelos (*)
DCC & LIACC
Universidade do Porto
Rua do Campo Alegre, 823 4150 Porto, Portugal
March 1998
Abstract
Despite extensive theoretical work on process-calculi,
abstract machine specifications and implementations of
actual computational models are still scarce. Moreover,
a general framework for compiling languages based on these
calculi is still elusive.
We propose a core assembly language onto which process-calculi based
languages may be compiled and present a specification for a
self-contained abstract machine that runs this assembly code. We also
include compilation examples of features of well known calculi and
discuss possible optimizations. Finally, we report preliminary
performance results obtained with an implementation of the abstract
machine coupled with an experimental language based on the
TyCO-calculus.
Keywords: Process-Calculi, Concurrency, Abstract-Machine,
Compilation, Implementation.
(*) Departamento de Informática, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal.