Partial Evaluation

Partial evaluation is a technique to partially execute a program, when only some of its input data are available. Consider a program p requiring two inputs, x1 and x2. When speci c values d1 and d2 are given for the two inputs, we can run the program, producing a result. When only one input value d1 is given, we cannot run p, but can partially evaluate it, producing a version pd1 of p specialized for the case where x1 = d1. Partial evaluation is an instance of program specialization, and the specialized version pd1 of p is called a residual program. For an example, consider the following C function power(n, x), which computes x raised to the n'th power.

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