Executing Verified Compiler Specification

Much work has been done in verifying a compiler specification, both in hand-written and mechanical proofs. However, there is still a gap between a correct compiler specification and a correct compiler implementation. To fill this gap and obtain a correct compiler implementation, we take the approach of generating a compiler from its specification. We verified the correctness of a compiler specification with the theorem prover Isabelle/HOL, and generated a Standard ML code corresponding to the specification with Isabelle’s code generation facility. The generated compiler can be executed with some hand-written codes, and it compiles a small functional programming language into the Java virtual machine with several program transformations.