{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/34297"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/34297","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"A formal semantics of C with applications","abstract":"This dissertation shows that complex, real programming languages can be completely formalized in the K Framework, yielding interpreters and analysis tools for testing and bug detection. This is demonstrated by providing, in K, the first complete formal semantics of the C programming language. With varying degrees of effort, tools such as interpreters, debuggers, and model-checkers, together with tools that check for memory safety, races, deadlocks, and undefined behavior are then generated from the semantics. Being executable, the semantics has been thoroughly tested against the GCC torture test suite and successfully passes 99.2% of 776 test programs. The semantics is also evaluated against popular analysis tools, using a new test suite in addition to a third-party test suite. The semantics-based tool performs at least as well or better than the other tools tested.","abstract_html":"This dissertation shows that complex, real programming languages can be completely formalized in the K Framework, yielding interpreters and analysis tools for testing and bug detection. This is demonstrated by providing, in K, the first complete formal semantics of the C programming language. With varying degrees of effort, tools such as interpreters, debuggers, and model-checkers, together with tools that check for memory safety, races, deadlocks, and undefined behavior are then generated from the semantics. Being executable, the semantics has been thoroughly tested against the GCC torture test suite and successfully passes 99.2% of 776 test programs. The semantics is also evaluated against popular analysis tools, using a new test suite in addition to a third-party test suite. The semantics-based tool performs at least as well or better than the other tools tested.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Ellison, Charles"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Rosu, Grigore","Agha, Gul A.","Meseguer, José","Schulte, Wolfram"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2012,"date_issued":"2012-09-18T21:10:06Z","date_published":"2012-09-18T21:10:06Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:31Z","subjects":["K framework","formal semantics","C programming language","undefined behavior"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2012 Charles M. Ellison III"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34297","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Rosu, Grigore","Agha, Gul A.","Meseguer, José","Schulte, Wolfram"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Ellison, Charles"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2012-09-18T21:10:06Z","2012-08"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["K framework","formal semantics","C programming language","undefined behavior"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2012 Charles M. Ellison III"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34297"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This dissertation shows that complex, real programming languages can be completely formalized in the K Framework, yielding interpreters and analysis tools for testing and bug detection. This is demonstrated by providing, in K, the first complete formal semantics of the C programming language. With varying degrees of effort, tools such as interpreters, debuggers, and model-checkers, together with tools that check for memory safety, races, deadlocks, and undefined behavior are then generated from the semantics. Being executable, the semantics has been thoroughly tested against the GCC torture test suite and successfully passes 99.2% of 776 test programs. The semantics is also evaluated against popular analysis tools, using a new test suite in addition to a third-party test suite. The semantics-based tool performs at least as well or better than the other tools tested.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2012-07-06T20:10:09Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 1 Ellison_Charles.pdf: 3657159 bytes, checksum: 4761fd5c06039cf10d448ebfd085c09f (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2012-09-18T21:10:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 Ellison_Charles.pdf: 3657159 bytes, checksum: 4761fd5c06039cf10d448ebfd085c09f (MD5) license.txt: 4065 bytes, checksum: d5e8dae78cd564d2aba5816a92f3e614 (MD5) 1_license.txt: 4065 bytes, checksum: db374b096869a4fb149652fe3e1c1cb0 (MD5)"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["A formal semantics of C with applications"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Rosu, Grigore","Agha, Gul A.","Meseguer, José","Schulte, Wolfram"],"dc:creator":["Ellison, Charles"],"dc:date":["2012-09-18T21:10:06Z","2012-08"],"dc:description":["This dissertation shows that complex, real programming languages can be completely formalized in the K Framework, yielding interpreters and analysis tools for testing and bug detection. This is demonstrated by providing, in K, the first complete formal semantics of the C programming language. With varying degrees of effort, tools such as interpreters, debuggers, and model-checkers, together with tools that check for memory safety, races, deadlocks, and undefined behavior are then generated from the semantics. Being executable, the semantics has been thoroughly tested against the GCC torture test suite and successfully passes 99.2% of 776 test programs. The semantics is also evaluated against popular analysis tools, using a new test suite in addition to a third-party test suite. The semantics-based tool performs at least as well or better than the other tools tested.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2012-07-06T20:10:09Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 1 Ellison_Charles.pdf: 3657159 bytes, checksum: 4761fd5c06039cf10d448ebfd085c09f (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2012-09-18T21:10:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 Ellison_Charles.pdf: 3657159 bytes, checksum: 4761fd5c06039cf10d448ebfd085c09f (MD5) license.txt: 4065 bytes, checksum: d5e8dae78cd564d2aba5816a92f3e614 (MD5) 1_license.txt: 4065 bytes, checksum: db374b096869a4fb149652fe3e1c1cb0 (MD5)"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34297"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2012 Charles M. Ellison III"],"dc:subject":["K framework","formal semantics","C programming language","undefined behavior"],"dc:title":["A formal semantics of C with applications"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Computer Science"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:31Z"}