Exploration of language specifications by compilation to first-order logic
Sylvia Grewe, Sebastian Erdweg, Michael Raulf, Mira Mezini · 2016
Exploration of language specifications helps to discover errors and inconsistencies early during the development of a programming language. We propose exploration of language specifications via application of existing automated first-order theorem provers (ATPs). To this end, we translate language specifications and exploration tasks to first-order logic, which many ATPs accept as input. However, there are several different strategies for compiling a language specification to first-order logic, and even small variations in the translation may have a large impact on the time it takes ATPs to find proofs.