In this paper we provide a categorical interpretation of the first-order Hoare logic of a small programming language by giving a weakest precondition semantics for the language. To this end, we extend the well-known notion of a (first-order) hyperdoctrine to include partial maps. The most important new aspect of the resulting partial (first-order) hyperdoctrine is a different notion of morphism between the fibres. We also use this partial hyperdoctrine to give a model for Beeson's Partial Function Logic such that (a version of) his axiomatization is complete with respect to this model. This shows the usefulness of the notion, independent of its intended use as a model for Hoare logic.

We propose a formalization of standard database management systems using topos theory. In this treatment, all constructions take place within an ambient topos, which thereby serves as the ‘universe of discourse’. A database schema is defined using objects and morphisms in the ambient topos. A database state for a given schema involves not only the ambient topos but also an internal category within the topos. This approach neatly separates the schema from the state data by placing them in distinct category structures. It is shown that database states can either be regarded syntactically as objects in an external topos or semantically as morphisms in an internal slice category. A number of operations are introduced that correspond to operations used in standard database systems. Extraction selects some of the tables, attributes and domains of a database state. The squeeze operation performs an ‘elimination of duplicates’, which can be combined with extraction to obtain an operation called ‘projection’ in standard relational database systems. A join operation is defined, which generalizes the relational join operation and can be used for the cartesian product and selection operations. Finally, ‘boolean’ operations of intersection, union and difference are introduced and related to the other operations.

We define a categorical framework, based on the notion of sketch, for specification and evaluation in the senses of algebraic specifications and algebraic programming. This framework goes far beyond our initial motivation, which was to specify computation with algebraic numbers. We begin by redefining sketches in order to deal explicitly with programs. Expressions and terms are carefully defined and studied, then quasi-projective sketches are introduced. We describe static evaluation in these sketches: we propose a rigorous basis for evalution in the corresponding structures. These structures admit an initial model, but are not necessarily equational. In Part II (Duval and Reynaud 1994), we study a more general process, called dynamic evaluation, for structures that may have no initial model.

In the first part of this paper (Duval and Reynaud 1994), we defined a categorical framework, based on the notion of sketch, for specification and evaluation in the senses of algebraic specifications and algebraic programming. Static evaluation in quasi-projective sketches was defined in Part I; in this paper, dynamic evaluation is introduced. It deals with more general structures, which may have no initial model. Until now, this process has not been used in algebraic specification systems, but computer algebra systems are beginning to use it as a basic tool. Finally, we give some applications of dynamic evaluation to computation in field extensions.

We have found both a proofnet criterion and a sequent calculus for the multiplicative fragment with units ( ⊗1,℘,0, atoms), but without the ┴-boxes of Girard (1987), which differentiate between 1 and ┴. We have also proved that for any of our proofnets there is a corresponding sequential proof.