What (who) is SECD - definition

Stack Environment Control Dump machine; SECD; SECD abstract machine

SECD machine

The SECD machine is a highly influential (see: ) virtual machine and abstract machine intended as a target for functional programming language compilers. The letters stand for Stack, Environment, Control, Dump—the internal registers of the machine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SECD_machine

Stack Environment Control Dump machine

(SECD machine) The first abstract machine for reducing lambda-calculus expressions, invented by P. J. Landin. The machine has four registers holding pointers to {linked lists} operated as push-down stacks which hold the information required for the evaluation of an expression. The registers point to (1) Stack which holds the arguments of partially evaluated expressions and results of completely evaluated ones, (2) Environment where the current expression being evaluated is stored, (3) Control which holds the machine instructions that manipulate the contents of the four registers that represent the expression being evaluated, (4) Dump on which the state of the machine is temporarily saved during the evaluation of expressions. See also Lispkit.

Wikipedia

SECD machine

The SECD machine is a highly influential (see: § Landin's contribution) virtual machine and abstract machine intended as a target for functional programming language compilers. The letters stand for Stack, Environment, Control, Dump—the internal registers of the machine. The registers Stack, Control, and Dump point to (some realisations of) stacks, and Environment points to (some realisation of) an associative array.

The machine was the first to be specifically designed to evaluate lambda calculus expressions. It was originally described by Peter J. Landin in "The Mechanical Evaluation of Expressions" in 1964. The description published by Landin was fairly abstract, and left many implementation choices open (like an operational semantics).

Lispkit Lisp was an influential compiler based on the SECD machine, and the SECD machine has been used as the target for other systems such as Lisp/370. In 1989 researchers at the University of Calgary worked on a hardware implementation of the machine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SECD machine