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Making type inference practical

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ECOOP ’92 European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP 1992)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 615))

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Abstract

We present the implementation of a type inference algorithm for untyped object-oriented programs with inheritance, assignments, and late binding. The algorithm significantly improves our previous one, presented at OOPSLA'91, since it can handle collection classes, such as List, in a useful way. Abo, the complexity has been dramatically improved, from exponential time to low polynomial time. The implementation uses the techniques of incremental graph construction and constraint template instantiation to avoid representing intermediate results, doing superfluous work, and recomputing type information. Experiments indicate that the implementation type checks as much as 100 lines pr. second. This results in a mature product, on which a number of tools can be based, for example a safety tool, an image compression tool, a code optimization tool, and an annotation tool. This may make type inference for object-oriented languages practical.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade, DK-8000, århus C, Denmark

    Nicholas Oxhøj, Jens Palsberg & Michael I. Schwartzbach

Authors
  1. Nicholas Oxhøj
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  2. Jens Palsberg
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  3. Michael I. Schwartzbach
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Ole Lehrmann Madsen

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© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Oxhøj, N., Palsberg, J., Schwartzbach, M.I. (1992). Making type inference practical. In: Madsen, O.L. (eds) ECOOP ’92 European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. ECOOP 1992. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 615. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053045

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053045

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-55668-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47268-1

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