9,731 research outputs found
The Algebraic Intersection Type Unification Problem
The algebraic intersection type unification problem is an important component
in proof search related to several natural decision problems in intersection
type systems. It is unknown and remains open whether the algebraic intersection
type unification problem is decidable. We give the first nontrivial lower bound
for the problem by showing (our main result) that it is exponential time hard.
Furthermore, we show that this holds even under rank 1 solutions (substitutions
whose codomains are restricted to contain rank 1 types). In addition, we
provide a fixed-parameter intractability result for intersection type matching
(one-sided unification), which is known to be NP-complete.
We place the algebraic intersection type unification problem in the context
of unification theory. The equational theory of intersection types can be
presented as an algebraic theory with an ACI (associative, commutative, and
idempotent) operator (intersection type) combined with distributivity
properties with respect to a second operator (function type). Although the
problem is algebraically natural and interesting, it appears to occupy a
hitherto unstudied place in the theory of unification, and our investigation of
the problem suggests that new methods are required to understand the problem.
Thus, for the lower bound proof, we were not able to reduce from known results
in ACI-unification theory and use game-theoretic methods for two-player tiling
games
Applied type system
We present a type system that can effectively facilitate the use of types in capturing invariants in stateful programs that may involve (sophisticated) pointer manipulation. With its root in a recently developed framework Applied Type System (ATS), the type system imposes a level of abstraction on program states by introducing a novel notion of recursive stateful views and then relies on a form of linear logic to reason about such views. We consider the design and then the formalization of the type system to constitute the primary contribution of the paper. In addition, we mention a prototype implementation of the type system and then give a variety of examples that attests to the practicality of programming with recursive stateful views.National Science Foundation (CCR-0224244, CCR-0229480
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