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Logical foundations of object-oriented and frame-based languages

Published: 01 July 1995 Publication History

Abstract

We propose a novel formalism, called Frame Logic (abbr., F-logic), that accounts in a clean and declarative fashion for most of the structural aspects of object-oriented and frame-based languages. These features include object identity, complex objects, inheritance, polymorphic types, query methods, encapsulation, and others. In a sense, F-logic stands in the same relationship to the object-oriented paradigm as classical predicate calculus stands to relational programming. F-logic has a model-theoretic semantics and a sound and complete resolution-based proof theory. A small number of fundamental concepts that come from object-oriented programming have direct representation in F-logic; other, secondary aspects of this paradigm are easily modeled as well. The paper also discusses semantic issues pertaining to programming with a deductive object-oriented language based on a subset of F-logic.

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Claudio Delrieux

In recent years, “object-oriented programming” (OOP) has become a catch-phrase among researchers in programming languages and implementors of software development tools. OOP is loosely defined as a paradigm, and diverse elements, such as typing, algebraic specification, encapsulation, inheritance, message passing, polymorphism, and many others, are claimed to be the salient features of the paradigm. Some maintain, however, that this inclusiveness arises from a lack of clear semantics, which can be traced to an inherent lack of formal foundations. Others find it fruitful to combine OOP with other formalisms, like relational frameworks and deductive databases (see Chen et al. [1]) or typed lambda-calculus (see Cardelli and Wegner [2]). The authors address many of these issues, and propose a formalism called frame logic (F-logic) that they claim achieves the primary objectives of OOP, that is, the goals listed above. F-logic is also suitable for defining, querying, and manipulating database schemas . It has a model-theoretic semantics and a sound and complete proof theory. It is also well suited to frame-based language applications. The paper begins with a discussion of the relationship between OOP and relational programming. An informal example of F-logic is introduced to illustrate some of the main features before giving a formal account of them. Syntax and semantics of F-logic are then described, and various semantic properties of the logic are also discussed. Next, the authors develop a proof theory that is sound and complete with respect to the semantics of the logic. The expressive power of the logic is then demonstrated in a number of examples. This work provides a survey of relevant research results in OOP, query languages, and databases, and will interest programming language developers and database management designers.

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cover image Journal of the ACM
Journal of the ACM  Volume 42, Issue 4
July 1995
223 pages
ISSN:0004-5411
EISSN:1557-735X
DOI:10.1145/210332
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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 01 July 1995
Published in JACM Volume 42, Issue 4

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Author Tags

  1. deductive databases
  2. frame-based languages
  3. logic programming
  4. nonmonotonic inheritance
  5. object-oriented programming
  6. proof theory
  7. semantics
  8. typing

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