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In computer science, denotational semantics (initially known as mathematical semantics or Scott–Strachey semantics) is an approach of formalizing the meanings of programming languages by constructing mathematical objects (called denotations) that describe the meanings of expressions from the languages.
Contents
Description
Broadly speaking, denotational semantics is concerned with finding mathematical objects called domains that represent what programs do. For example, programs (or program phrases) might be represented by partial functions or by games between the environment and the system. An important tenet of denotational semantics is that semantics should be compositional: the denotation of a program phrase should be built out of the denotations of its subphrases.
Connections to other areas of computer science
Some work in denotational semantics has interpreted types as domains in the sense of domain theory, which can be seen as a branch of model theory, leading to connections with type theory and category theory. Within computer science, there are connections with abstract interpretation, program verification, and model checking.
Other approaches
Other approaches to providing formal semantics of programming languages include axiomatic semantics and operational semantics.
See also
External links
- Denotational semantics @ Wikipedia
