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Mechanized Semantics for the Clight Subset of the C Language

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Abstract

This article presents the formal semantics of a large subset of the C language called Clight. Clight includes pointer arithmetic, struct and union types, C loops and structured switch statements. Clight is the source language of the CompCert verified compiler. The formal semantics of Clight is a big-step operational semantics that observes both terminating and diverging executions and produces traces of input/output events. The formal semantics of Clight is mechanized using the Coq proof assistant. In addition to the semantics of Clight, this article describes its integration in the CompCert verified compiler and several ways by which the semantics was validated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ENSIIE, 1 square de la Résistance, 91025, Evry cedex, France

    Sandrine Blazy

  2. INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt, B.P. 105, 78153, Le Chesnay, France

    Xavier Leroy

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  1. Sandrine Blazy
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  2. Xavier Leroy
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Correspondence to Xavier Leroy.

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This work was supported by Agence Nationale de la Recherche, grant number ANR-05-SSIA-0019.

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Blazy, S., Leroy, X. Mechanized Semantics for the Clight Subset of the C Language. J Autom Reasoning 43, 263–288 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10817-009-9148-3

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