4 research outputs found
Type Soundness for Path Polymorphism
Path polymorphism is the ability to define functions that can operate
uniformly over arbitrary recursively specified data structures. Its essence is
captured by patterns of the form which decompose a compound data
structure into its parts. Typing these kinds of patterns is challenging since
the type of a compound should determine the type of its components. We propose
a static type system (i.e. no run-time analysis) for a pattern calculus that
captures this feature. Our solution combines type application, constants as
types, union types and recursive types. We address the fundamental properties
of Subject Reduction and Progress that guarantee a well-behaved dynamics. Both
these results rely crucially on a notion of pattern compatibility and also on a
coinductive characterisation of subtyping