Rewriting: An Effective Model of Concurrency

Meseguer has advocated the use of rewriting logic [14] as a general model of concurrency. Since this model is based on rewriting modulo (an equational theory), a direct implementation will face inefficiency or even undecidability problems. However, rewriting was precisely originally studied as a way to implement efficiently equational theories. We show how to combine the rewrite steps corresponding to rewriting logic deductions (non-equationally interpreted) with those implementing the equational theory (equationally interpreted). As an application, we show on a simple example how this may provide a unified semantics for a LOTOS-like language integrating transitions and abstract data types. This result also gives some insight about the semantics of non determinism.

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