Towards a semantics-based information theory (Q1179806)

The purpose of this paper is to present an abstract interpretation of programs as information transformers. The interpretation is based on information domains, a proper subclass of the domains used in denotational semantics. A level of informtion is assigned to each value of these domains by a monotonic domain level function. The level of a value represents a quantitative measure of its information content. The abstract interpretation of a program maps levels of information to levels of information, giving a quantitative relation between input and output.