Functional formal methods

Abstract

Some functional programming languages are also mathematical logics. One can reason formally, traditionally, and directly about programs in such languages. This is driving a new application area for functional programming: modeling microarchitectures, hardware design languages, and imperative programming languages. Such models serve the dual purposes of simulation and formal analysis.ACL2, "A Computational Logic for Applicative Common Lisp," is a functional programming language that is also a first-order mathematical logic supported by a Boyer-Moore style mechanical theorem prover [5]. It is being used to model and verify artifacts of commercial and industrial interest.