The design and implementation of a program development system based on rewriting method

In this paper, we present a program development system based on rewriting method with the goal of providing an powerful tool for automatic software development and rapid prototyping. New mechanisms for defining constrained types and optimal rules are introduced to functional programming languages to achieve strong expressiveness. The enhanced functional programming language is combined with an algebraic specification language. Thus, the design from specification to program can be supported, and the efficiency and flexibility of programming can also be improved. In this system, both static and dynamic techniques are used to deal with constrained type check. All function definitions, computation constraints and optimal rules are regarded as rewriting rules. In order to provide a strong support for a large group of TRSs which may be neither terminating nor orthogonal, we propose a method using structure measure to decide TRSs' confluences. Based on this method, we present a partial completion algorithm to generate a rewriting model from a specification. Depending on term rewriting system, the mixed language system computes with parallel outermost and needed reduction. We explain the principles and implementation techniques in detail, some examples are provided.