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We present Continuation Passing Style (CPS) translations for Plotkin and Pretnar's effect handlers with Hillerström and Lindley's row-typed fine-grain call-by-value calculus of effect handlers as the source language. CPS translations of handlers are interesting theoretically, to explain the semantics of handlers, and also offer a practical implementation technique that does not require special support in the target language's runtime. We begin with a first-order CPS translation into untyped lambda calculus which manages a stack of continuations and handlers as a curried sequence of arguments. We then refine the initial CPS translation first by uncurrying it to yield a properly tail-recursive translation and second by making it higher-order in order to contract administrative redexes at translation time. We prove that the higher-order CPS translation simulates effect handler reduction. We have implemented the higher-order CPS translation as a JavaScript backend for the Links programming language.
@InProceedings{hillerstrom_et_al:LIPIcs.FSCD.2017.18,
author = {Hillerstr\"{o}m, Daniel and Lindley, Sam and Atkey, Robert and Sivaramakrishnan, K. C.},
title = {{Continuation Passing Style for Effect Handlers}},
booktitle = {2nd International Conference on Formal Structures for Computation and Deduction (FSCD 2017)},
pages = {18:1--18:19},
series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
ISBN = {978-3-95977-047-7},
ISSN = {1868-8969},
year = {2017},
volume = {84},
editor = {Miller, Dale},
publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
address = {Dagstuhl, Germany},
URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSCD.2017.18},
URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-77394},
doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.FSCD.2017.18},
annote = {Keywords: effect handlers, delimited control, continuation passing style}
}