Abstract
We present a weakest preconditions calculus à la Dijkstra for a small common kernel of existing data-parallel languages. We use two-part assertions, where the current extent of parallelism is specified by a separate boolean vector expression. Our main contribution is concerned with the conditioning construct where which modifies the current extent of parallelism. We prove that the weakest (strict) preconditions of a where block is definable by an assertion as soon as its body is. This is not the case with its weakest liberal preconditions. This sheds a new light on the deep semantic nature of the data-parallel conditioning construct.
This work has been partly supported by the French CNRS Coordinated Research Program on Concurrency, Communication and Cooperation C 3, and Department of Defense DRET contract 91/1180.
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Bougé, L., Le Guyadec, Y., Utard, G., Virot, B. (1994). On the expressivity of a weakest precondition calculus for a simple data-parallel programming language (short version). In: Buchberger, B., Volkert, J. (eds) Parallel Processing: CONPAR 94 — VAPP VI. VAPP CONPAR 1994 1994. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 854. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58430-7_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58430-7_10
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