Call-by-value in a basic logic for interaction

Abstract

In game semantics and related approaches to programming language semantics, programs are modelled by interaction dialogues. Such models have recently been used by a number of authors for the design of compilation methods, in particular for applications where resource control is important. The work in this area has focused on call-by-name languages. In this paper we study the compilation of call-by-value into a first-order low-level language by means of an interpretation in a semantic interactive model. We refine the methods developed for call-by-name languages to allow an efficient treatment of call-by-value. We introduce an intermediate language that is based on the structure of an interactive computation model and that can be seen as a fragment of Linear Logic. The main result is that Plotkin’s call-by-value CPS-translation and its soundness proof can be refined to target this intermediate language. This refined CPS-translation amounts to a direct compilation of the source language into a first-order language.