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Type system for specializing polymorphism

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Theoretical Aspects of Computer Software (TACS 1997)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1281))

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Abstract

Flexibility of programming and efficiency of program execution are two important features of a programming language. Unfortunately, however, there is an inherent conflict between these features in design and implementation of a modern statically typed programming language. Flexibility is achieved by high-degree of polymorphism, which is based on generic primitives in an abstract model of computation, while efficiency requires optimal use of low-level primitives specialized to individual data structures. The motivation of this work is to reconcile these two features by developing a mechanism for specializing polymorphic primitives based on static type information. We first present a method for coherent transformation of an ML style polymorphic language into an explicitly typed calculus. We then analyze the existing methods for compiling record calculus and unboxed calculus, extract their common structure, and develop a framework for type based specialization of polymorphism.

Partly supported by the Japanese Ministry of Education Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Area 275: “advanced databases”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, 606, Kyoto, Japan

    Atsushi Ohori

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  1. Atsushi Ohori
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Martín Abadi Takayasu Ito

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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ohori, A. (1997). Type system for specializing polymorphism. In: Abadi, M., Ito, T. (eds) Theoretical Aspects of Computer Software. TACS 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1281. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0014549

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0014549

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-63388-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69530-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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