article

Open access

A formal approach to undo operations in programming languages

Author:

George B. Leeman, Jr.Authors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), Volume 8, Issue 1

Pages 50 - 87

https://doi.org/10.1145/5001.5005

Published: 02 January 1986 Publication History

Abstract

A framework is presented for adding a general Undo facility to programming languages. A discussion of relevant literature is provided to show that the idea of Undoing pervades several areas in computer science, and even other disciplines. A simple model of computation is introduced, and it is augmented with a minimal amount of additional structure needed for recovery and reversal. Two different interpretations of Undo are motivated with examples. Then, four primitives are defined in a language-independent manner; they are sufficient to support a wide range of Undo capability. Two of these primitives carry out state saving, and the others mirror the two versions of the Undo operation. Properties of and relationships between these primitives are explored, and there are some preliminary remarks on how one could implement a system based on this formalism. The main conclusion is that the notions of recovery and reversal of actions can become part of the programming process.

References

[1]

ANDERSON, T., AND RANDELL, B. Computing Systems Reliability., Cambridge University Press, New York, 1979.

[2]

APPLE COMPUTER, INC. LisaWrite. Cupertino, Calif., 1983.

[3]

ARCSER, J. E., JR., AND CONWA~, R. COPE: A cooperative programming environment. TR-81- 459, Cornell Univ., June 1981.

Digital Library

[4]

ARCHER, J. E., JR., CONWAY, R., AND SCHNEIDER, F.B. User recovery and reversal in interactive systems. TR 81-476, Cornell Univ., Oct. 1981.

Digital Library

[5]

ARCHER, J. E., JR., CONWAY, a., AND SCHNEIDER, F.B. User recovery and reversal in interactive systems. ACM Trans. Program. Lang. Syst. 6, 1 (Jan. 1984), 1-19.

Digital Library

[6]

ARCHER, J. E., JR., CONWAY, R., SHORE, A., AND SILVER, L. The CORE user interface. TR 80- 437, Cornell Univ., Sept. 1980.

Digital Library

[7]

BALZER, R.M. EXDAMS--Extendable debugging and monitoring system. In AFIPS Proceedings Spring Joint Computer Conference, 34, AFIPS Press, Montvale, N.J., 1969, 567-580.

[8]

BENNETT, C. H. Logical reversibility of computation. IBM J. Res. Dev. 17, 6 (Nov. 1973), 525-532.

Digital Library

[9]

BENNETT, C. H. The thermodynamics of computation--A review. Int. J. Theor. Phys. 21, 12 (Dec. 1982), 905-940.

[10]

BRANSCOMB, L. M., AND THOMAS, J. C. Ease of use: A system design challenge. In Information Processing 83, Proceedings }FIP 9th World Computing Congress, R.E.A. Mason, Ed., Elsevier North-Holland, New York, 1983, 431-438.

[11]

BURKS, A. W., AND BURKS, A.R. The ENIAC: First general-purpose electronic computer. Ann. Hist. Cornput. 3, 4 (Oct. 1981), 310-399.

Digital Library

[12]

CARTER, W.C. Fault detection and recovery algorithms for fault-tolerant systems. In EURO IFIP 1979, P. A. Samet, Ed., North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1979, 725-734.

[13]

CARTER, W, C. Personal communication. May 1984.

[14]

DARLINGTON, J. An experimental program transformation and synthesis system. Artif. Intell. 16 (1981), 1-46.

Digital Library

[15]

FERNANDEZ, E. B., SUMMERS, R. C., AND WOOD, C. The Systems Programming Series. Database Security and Integrity, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1981.

Digital Library

[16]

FISCHER, C. N., JOHNSON, G., PAL, A., STOCK, D., AND MAUNEY, J. An introduction to Editor Allan Poe. In SOFTFAIR 83, Proceedings 1st Conference Software Development Tools, Techniques, and Alternatives (Washington, D.C., July 1983), IEEE, New York, 245-250.

[17]

FLOYD, R.W. Nondeterministic algorithms. J. ACM 14, 4 (Oct. 1967), 636-644.

Digital Library

[18]

FOLEY, J. D., AND WALLACE, V.L. The art of natural graphic man-machine conversion. Proc. IEEE 62, 4 (Apr. 1974), 462-471.

[19]

FORTUNE, S.J. Dynamic variables. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center internal document, Apr. 1981.

[20]

FREDKIN, E., AND TOFFOLI, T. Conservative logic. Int. J. Theor. Phys. 2l, 3/4 (Apr. 1982), 219-253.

[21]

GAINES, B. R., AND FACEY, P.V. Some experience in interactive system development and application. Proc. IEEE 63, 6 (June 1975), 894-911.

[22]

GOLOMB, S. W., AND BAUMERT, L. D. Backtrack programming. J. ACM 12, 4 (Oct. 1965), 516-524.

Digital Library

[23]

GOOD, M. An ease of use evaluation of an integrated editor and formatter. MIT/LCS TR 266, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nov. 1981.

Digital Library

[24]

GOSLING, J.A. Unix Emacs Reference Manual. Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, 1982.

[25]

GRISWOLD, R. E., HANSON, D. R., AND KORB, J.T. Generators in Icon. ACM Trans. Program. Lang. Syst. 3, 2 (Apr. 1981), 144-161.

Digital Library

[26]

HA ME, M., SO, R., ANDERSON, T., GILBERT, E., GOOD, M., NIAMIR, B., ROSENSTEIN, L., AND SCHOICHET, S. The implementation of Etude, an integrated and interactive document production system. In Proceedings ACM SIGPLAN/SIGOA Conference on Text Manipulation, ACM, New York, June, 1981, 137-146.

Digital Library

[27]

HANSEN, W. J. User engineering principles for interactive systems. In AFIPS Conference Proceedings 39, AFIPS Press, Montvale, N.J., 1971, 523-532.

Digital Library

[28]

IBM CORP. IBM Virtual Machine/System Product: System Product Editor User's Guide. Endicott, N.Y., 1980.

[29]

IBM CORP. Personal editor. Boca Raton, Fla., 1982.

[30]

JENSEN, K., AND WIRTH, N. Pascal User Manual and Report, Springer Verlag, New York, 1974. Corrected printing, 1978.

Digital Library

[31]

KERNIGHAN, B. W., AND RITCHIE, D.M. The C Programming Language, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1978.

Digital Library

[32]

KERNIGHAN, B. W., AND PLAUGER, P.J. Software Tools in Pascal, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1981.

Digital Library

[33]

KORF, R.E. Inversion of applicative programs. In Proceedings 7th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI-81 (Vancouver, Canada, Aug., 1981), 1007-1009.

[34]

KORF, R.E. Personal communication. Apr. 1984.

[35]

KOSINSKI, P.R. PEDIT, a programmable editor. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center internal document, June 1980.

[36]

KOSlNSKI, P.R. Personal communication. June 1979.

[37]

KRUSKAL, V.J. Managing multiversion programs with an editor. IBM J. Res. Dev. 28, I (Jan. 1984), 74-81.

Digital Library

[38]

KRUSKAL, V.J. P-EDIT, a text editor for parametric files; user guide. RC 8352, IBM T. J. 'Watson Research Center, July 1980. A substantial revision, called the P-EDIT Reference Manual, is available from its author.

[39]

KWAN, C. Y. K., AND SORENSON, P. G. A high-level user-interface prototype for office information systems. Rep. 83-15, Univ. of Saskatchewan, 1983.

[40]

LAMPSON, B.W. Bravo manual. In Alto User's Handbook, Xerox Paid Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, Calif., 1978, 31-62.

[41]

LANDAUER, R. Irreversibility and heat generation in the computing process. IBM J. Res. Dev. 5, 3 (July 1961), 183-191.

Digital Library

[42]

LEEMAN, G. B., JR. A formal approach to undo operations in programming languages. RC 10310, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Jan. 1984.

[43]

LEEMAN, G. B., JR. Building undo/redo operations into the C programming language. In Proceedings 15th Annual International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing--FTCS 15, IEEE Computer Society Press, Silver Spring, Md., 1985, 410-415.

[44]

MCCARTHY, J. The inversion of functions defined by Turing machines. In Automata Studies, C. E. Shannon and J. McCarthy, Eds., Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1956, 177-181.

[45]

MCCARTHY, J., ABRAHAMS, P. W., EDWARDS, l). J., HART, T. P., AND LEVIN, M.I. LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1973.

Digital Library

[46]

MEDINA-MORA, R., AND FELLER, P. An incremental programming environment. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. SE-7, 5 (Sept. 1981), 472-481.

Digital Library

[47]

POURNELLE, J. User's column: Epson QX-10, Zenith Z-29, CP/M-68K, and more. BYTE 8, 8 (Aug. 1983), 434-454.

[48]

PRAGER, J. M., AND BORKIN, S.A. POLITE project progress report. Rep. G320-2140, IBM Cambridge Scientific Center, Apr. 1982.

[49]

RADIN, G. The 801 minicomputer. IBMJ. Res. Dev. 27, 3 (May 1983), 237-246.

Digital Library

[50]

REISS, S. P. Graphical program development with PECAN program development systems. SIGPLAN Not: Proceedings ACM SIGSOFT/SIGPLAN Software Engineering Symposium on Practical Software Development Environments 19, 5 (Apr. 1984), 30-37.

Digital Library

[51]

REISS, S.P. PECAN: Program development systems that support multiple views. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. SE-II, 3 (Mar. 1985), 276-285.

Digital Library

[52]

RUTKOWSKI, C. An introduction to the human applications standard computer interface, Part 1: Theory and principles. BYTE 7, 10 (Oct. 1982), 291-310.

[53]

SEYBOLD, J.W. Apple's Lisa: The "next generation" computer? Seybold Rep. Publ. Syst. 12, 10 ( Jan. 1983).

[54]

SEYBOLD, J.W. The Xerox Star, a "professional" workstation. Seybold Rep. Word Process. 4, 5 (May 1981).

[55]

SICKEL, S. Invertibility of logic programs. In Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Automated Deduction (Austin, Tex., Feb. 1979), W. H. Joyner, Jr., Ed., 103-109.

[56]

STEPHENSON, C. J. EI) introduction, primitives, and macros. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center internal document, Oct. 1983.

[57]

STEPHENSON, C.J. Program notes and data structures for ED. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center internal document, Oct. 1983.

[58]

TEITELMAN, W. lnterlisp Reference Manual. 4th ed., Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, Calif., 1978.

[59]

UNIVERSITY Or MICHIGAN. The Michigan Terminal System. Vol. 1, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1976.

[60]

VERHOFSTAD, Z. S.M. Recovery techniques for database systems. ACM Comput. Surv. 10, 2 (June 1978), 167-196.

Digital Library

[61]

VITTER, J. S. US&R: A new framework for redoing. SIGPLAN Not. Proceedings ACM SIGSOFT/SIGPLAN Software Engineering Symposium on Practical Software Development Environments 19, 5 (Apr. 1984), 168-176.

Digital Library

[62]

VITTER, J.S. US&R: A new framework for redoing. IEEE Softw. 1, 4 (Oct. 1984), 39-52.

Digital Library

[63]

WERTZ, H. The design of an integrated, interactive, and incremental programming environment. In Proceedings 6th International Conference on Software Engineering (New York, Sept. 1982), IEEE, New York, 157-165.

Digital Library

[64]

XEROX CORP. 8010 Star Information System Reference Guide. Dallas, Tex., 1981.

Cited By

Glück RYokoyama T(2023)Reversible computing from a programming language perspectiveTheoretical Computer Science10.1016/j.tcs.2022.06.010953:COnline publication date: 10-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.tcs.2022.06.010
Otto H(2023)UNDO, an aid for explorative learning?Journal of Computer Science and Technology10.1007/BF029465727:3(226-236)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/BF02946572
Mezzina CSchlatte RGlück RHaulund THoey JHolm Cservenka MLanese IMogensen TSiljak HSchultz UUlidowski I(2020)Software and Reversible Systems: A Survey of Recent ActivitiesReversible Computation: Extending Horizons of Computing10.1007/978-3-030-47361-7_2(41-59)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-47361-7_2
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

A formal approach to undo operations in programming languages

Recommendations

Undo as concurrent inverse in group editors

As an important mechanism for error recovery and exploration of alternatives in interactive and collaborative applications, an undo facility should have the capability of undoing any operation at any time. However, supporting undo in collaborative ...
Concurrency abstractions for programming languages using optimistic protocols
A Formal Approach to Recovery by Compensating Transactions

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

Copyright © 1986 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 02 January 1986

Published in TOPLAS Volume 8, Issue 1

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

47
Total Citations
View Citations
995
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)131
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)5

Reflects downloads up to 03 Oct 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Glück RYokoyama T(2023)Reversible computing from a programming language perspectiveTheoretical Computer Science10.1016/j.tcs.2022.06.010953:COnline publication date: 10-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.tcs.2022.06.010
Otto H(2023)UNDO, an aid for explorative learning?Journal of Computer Science and Technology10.1007/BF029465727:3(226-236)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/BF02946572
Mezzina CSchlatte RGlück RHaulund THoey JHolm Cservenka MLanese IMogensen TSiljak HSchultz UUlidowski I(2020)Software and Reversible Systems: A Survey of Recent ActivitiesReversible Computation: Extending Horizons of Computing10.1007/978-3-030-47361-7_2(41-59)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-47361-7_2
Melgratti HMezzina CUlidowski I(2019)Reversing P/T NetsCoordination Models and Languages10.1007/978-3-030-22397-7_2(19-36)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-22397-7_2
Mezzina C(2018)On Reversibility and BroadcastReversible Computation10.1007/978-3-319-99498-7_5(67-83)Online publication date: 22-Aug-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99498-7_5
Hauswirth MAzadmanesh MChurch LGabriel RHirschfeld RMasuhara H(2017)The entangled strands of time in software developmentProceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGPLAN International Workshop on Programming Experience10.1145/3167107(11-16)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3167107
Giachino ELanese IMezzina CTiezzi F(2017)Causal-consistent rollback in a tuple-based languageJournal of Logical and Algebraic Methods in Programming10.1016/j.jlamp.2016.09.00388(99-120)Online publication date: Apr-2017
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlamp.2016.09.003
Burtsev AJohnson DHibler MEide ERegehr J(2016)Abstractions for Practical Virtual Machine ReplayACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3007611.289225751:7(93-106)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3007611.2892257
Burtsev AJohnson DHibler MEide ERegehr JGupta-Cledat VPorter DSarkar V(2016)Abstractions for Practical Virtual Machine ReplayProceedings of the12th ACM SIGPLAN/SIGOPS International Conference on Virtual Execution Environments10.1145/2892242.2892257(93-106)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2892242.2892257
Lanese IMezzina CStefani J(2016)Reversibility in the higher-order π-calculusTheoretical Computer Science10.1016/j.tcs.2016.02.019625:C(25-84)Online publication date: 25-Apr-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.tcs.2016.02.019
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents